PREFACE. THIS paper, the object of which needs no explanation, has heretofore been printed with some additions, an account of which will be given further on. It stands here as it is to be found in Harl. MSS. 6797; the body of it, after the introductory matter, being written wide and on the alternate pages: obviously to admit corrections and additions, and in order that the corresponding Scotch law might be entered opposite. If any authentication of it, as having passed through Bacon's hands, were wanting beyond the introduction, it is to be found in a few corrections, one of which Mr. Spedding informs me is certainly in Bacon's hand, and others may very well be so. I should not have thought more than the introduction now worth printing (and that in the next Division of the Works) had it not already appeared: and I may say the same of the whole of the paper that next follows. |