tells me that when I dissent from a commonly received opinion, I ought to state the grounds of my dissent more fully and particularly. A fourth would have me unite the office of censor and moralist with that of editor, and explain to my readers what they are to approve and what to disapprove in each case. A fifth would have me dispense with discussions about politics, and the progress of science, and the financial condition of the kingdom, and the other affairs of which Bacon's writings treat, to make room for an imaginary description of his courtship and his wedding day, and whatever I can learn about his wife's family. I do not know that anyone has as yet proposed that I should add whatever I can learn about his own familyhis father's children by his first marriage-which would be an extensive subject. But why not? His own father's family would seem to have an earlier claim upon me than his wife's father's and stepfather's; and their history could not be less to my purpose. But however that may be, it is plain that these various demands are incompatible with each other; and it being impossible for me to supply each reader with what he would like best, I must be content to supply all with what I like best, and what all who really care for the subject will find it convenient to possess; namely, a collection of Bacon's letters, speeches, and other occasional works, so set forth that (as I expressed it to myself when I entered on the task very long ago) "a modern reader, having no more than the average knowledge of a modern reader, may follow and understand them all without getting out of his easy chair." I presume in my reader a desire, not to be amused or delighted, but to be informed;-to be informed about the thoughts and wishes and endeavours and performances of Bacon-so far as they can be known-in his passage through a busy life; and to be informed with as little trouble as possible to himself. When the things he must know, in order to form his judgment, require space to set them forth clearly, I am not sparing of my paper and print. But the faculty of judging, when the materials are properly placed before him, I assume that he possesses; and I do not waste words in advising him what to

think and how to feel, except when I have reason to apprehend that considerations which I think important will be overlooked. If these exceptional cases are found to occur always or mostly when I have something to suggest in Bacon's behalf, seldom or never when the danger lies in the opposite direction, and there is reason to apprehend that a fault will be overlooked or condoned, it does not follow that they are partially selected. The case against Bacon has been set forth by the ablest advocates in the most determined spirit of advocacy. Scarcely a point which could be made a ground of censure has been missed, and the result of the discussion hitherto has been the creation of a general disposition to think the worst of him in every passage of his active life. A questionable action of his which had the least chance of being generally regarded more favourably than it deserved to be, I do not think I have yet met with. If I argue against the unfavourable opinion and not against the favourable, it is because I argue against the opinion which I think unjust; and in the very few cases in which the general opinion of Bacon's conduct as a man and a politician has been favourable, I have not thought it unjust.

In speaking of the reader,' I have hitherto been thinking of the average reader,-such a one as one's self. For those of a higher order, who already know more about all these things than I can tell them, and ask for nothing but Bacon's own writings in a correct text, I have made a special and (as I thought) a sufficient provision. Whatever I believe to be Bacon's own, and nothing but what I believe to be Bacon's own, is printed in a larger type than the rest, and entered in the table of contents in capitals. The arrangement was fully explained in the preface to the first volume, and I should not have thought it necessary to mention it again, were it not that in one of the ablest, gravest, most thoughtful, and most judicious notices of my book that I have seen, I find the writer complaining of the trouble he has found "in picking out what he wants amid the mass of comments which separate one paper from another :" his want being "to have only what is

If that is too

Bacon's before him." Now nobody who can read finds any trouble in distinguishing small pica from long primer. If he wishes to see only what is Bacon's, he has only to refrain from reading anything which is not in small pica, and his trouble will consist in turning over the leaves. much, the capitals in the table of contents will show him at a glance all the pages which contain anything of Bacon's own, and he can go to them at once without so much as turning over the other leaves. More than this I cannot do for him without manifest injustice to his weaker brethren, for whom, as being presumably in the same condition in which I was myself when I began, I have a fellow feeling. It is true that the work is constructed on the supposition that both the comment and the text will be read; nor do I regard any one who skips. either the one or the other as having read the book or qualified himself to criticize it; but certainly nothing can be easier than to read all that is Bacon's without looking at anything that is mine, or all that is mine without looking at anything that is Bacon's.

Another and a very different critic, who complains of "the absence of the man, Francis Bacon, from the scene," will, I hope, profit by the same information. If he will take the trouble to read some of the larger type, he will find that the man, Francis Bacon, is the principal person in every scene throughout the work, and that the business of the smaller print is only to prepare the reader for his entrance. Wherever he sees small pica he may be sure that Bacon himself is there, in a much more authentic shape than either he or I could present him in; that he is there in his own person, speaking in his own words.

There are some cases also in which, though he is not speaking, he may be regarded as really present,-cases in which writings have been popularly ascribed to him which were not his.

Of this kind is the discussion of the famous letter to Sir Edward Coke upon his loss of office (pp. 121-131); which is the fulfilment of a promise made by me in a former volume to justify the opinion there expressed-namely that nobody could

believe it to have been written by Bacon "who knew what it was about." In connection with which case I have also taken occasion to draw attention to the remarkable discovery, made five or six years ago by the Rev. Alexander Grosart, of the real author of another work with which Bacon has been falsely credited-"The character of a believing Christian in Paradoxes and seeming contradictions."

As this is a preface of explanations, I will use it to acknowledge an error which I shall probably not have an opportunity of correcting. Having occasion to mention a Bill concerning Religion brought into the House of Commons in 1605-6 by Sir Edwin Sandys (Vol. III. p. 264), and having found it stated on good authority that his books had been publicly burned a few months before by order of the High Commission, I noticed the fact in passing, as significant of the relation in which he stood towards the authorities of the Church. I am indebted to a correspondent of " Notes and Queries" (19 April 1871,. p. 359) for the knowledge of a circumstance which entirely alters the case, and makes the inference inapplicable. It appears that, if the Publisher's Preface to the Europe Speculum may be trusted, what was burned was only "a spurious stolen copy, in part epitomised, in part amplified, and throughout most shamefully falsified and false printed from the author's original, insomuch that the same knight [Sir E. Sandys] was infinitely wronged thereby ;" and that it was burned by his own desire. “As soone as it came to his knowledge that such a thing was printed and passed under his name, he caused it (though somewhat late, when it seemes two impressions were for the most part vented) to be prohibited by authority; and, as I have heard, as many as could be discovered to be deservedly burnt, with power also to punish the Printers." I have very little doubt that this is the true account of the matter, and therefore that the inference which I had drawn was a mistake. Luckily nothing of importance depended upon it, and it will be completely removed by leaving out all the words within the parenthesis. Carleton, to

whom Chamberlain (who was my authority) was writing, probably knew what books they were, and therefore the words would not convey to him the impression which I think they would naturally convey to one who heard of the thing for the first time.

Several of the letters in this volume, and two or three in the last, are described as being copied from the "Fortescue Papers." This is a very valuable collection of original documents accidentally discovered not long ago by the Hon. G. M. Fortescue, the same from which a selection has lately been. made for the Camden Society by Mr. S. R. Gardiner; in whose introduction all that is known of their history will be found. The collection appears to have been at one time in the hands of Robert Stephens, by whom all Bacon's letters that are contained in it were carefully copied and printed with great accuracy in his "Letters and Remains of the Lord Chancellor Bacon" (1734). By the kindness of Mr. Fortescue I have been permitted to compare these with the printed copies; and though the comparison has not enabled me to present them in a materially improved shape, it has satisfied me that a copy by Robert Stephens is almost as good as an original. A fact of more value. For there are many papers printed by him from originals which are not now to be found; and it is satisfactory to know that his skill and accuracy as an editor may be safely relied upon. I am also indebted to the same collection for a good deal of collateral information throwing new light upon transactions in which Bacon was concerned.

80, Westbourne Terrace,

March, 1872.

J. S.

An undated letter in Sir Toby Matthew's collection, which, having been placed by former editors among the letters of 1617, I had reserved for this volume, appears to me on closer consideration to have been written some years before; probably while Bacon was Solicitor-General. It would perhaps be possible to fix the year-date with some certainty by the