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came into the Duke's possession nothing, I believe, is known. It is said to be by Peter Oliver; though, if the dates be correct, he must have been a very young man when it was done. Isaac Oliver is said to have died in 1617, Peter to have been born in 1601. The picture is dated 1620. If there is no better reason for ascribing it to Peter than that his father was dead when the date was inserted, it is obvious to suggest that the date represents the time when it was finished: the face may have been painted some years earlier. But whether it were a very early work of the son's or a very late one of the father's, or a work left unfinished by the father and finished by the son, it is a masterly performance, and bears upon its face the evidence of its value. The letters seen round the margin, giving the year date and the age date, are in the original painted with gold on the blue background of the picture, round the inner border. In white on black it was thought they would be scarcely visible. In all other respects the engraving is as exact as it could be made.

There still remains to be discovered the original of Pass's print; which is to be sought for, not (as I once thought) among pictures by Cornelius Jansen, but among miniatures by Hilliard and the Olivers. A miniature undoubtedly representing the same portrait, and also ascribed to Peter Oliver, was to be seen in another part of the same exhibition at South Kensington; and though I cannot think that it was the same which Pass engraved, because the engraving has so much more life and character in it, or that it can have been the work of either Oliver's own hand at any stage in the development of their powers, it affords a fair presumption that such a miniature was once in existence.

The new matter of Bacon's own, contained in these two volumes, reckoning as new not only what has not been printed before, but what has not been included in any former edition of Bacon's works-would fill about 150 pages, if collected together. A good deal of it however consists of notes of his speeches in Parliament, taken from the Journals of the House of Commons; which are so disjointed and fragmentary that it will be a question with many, whether they ought to have been included in a

work of this kind. It was a question with myself. But as I believe them to be genuine fragments of his speeches, taken down at the time as fast as a not very ready writer could follow; and as the proceedings of Parliament were so important a part of the business of the time, and Bacon so important an actor in them; and as I have myself learned from these fragmentary and disjointed notes so much about his political life which I could not have learned either from summary accounts or extracts; I thought it better to print all that there are, and so bring the whole of the evidence within reach of everybody. In order to make them as intelligible as I could, I have been obliged to enter into a history and discussion of the Parliamentary proceedings more minute than has been attempted before, and I think it will be found that there is both novelty and interest in the matter which the investigation has brought out. To myself at least much of it is new.

All the pieces in these, as in the preceding volumes, have been collated with the originals referred to in the footnotes: in most cases the proof-sheets have been corrected from them; nor have any alterations been admitted without notice into the text, except in regard of spelling and punctuation. In spelling and punctuation I have followed modern usage in all cases but one, which is peculiar. The Commentarius Solutus, which will be found near the beginning of the next volume, is copied from a note-book of private memoranda, of which a large proportion are set down in so abbreviated a form that the interpretation is doubtful. To supply the full words by conjecture would be to settle innumerable questions without authority, and at the same time to obliterate the facts upon which the conjecture rests. In this case therefore I have endeavoured to produce a literatim copy; and having had the best assistance both in deciphering the manuscript and correcting the proofs, I hope it will be found to be as nearly a fac-simile of the original as was compatible with the use of my type and the length of my line.'

J. S.

The date however at the top of p. 63 ought to be 26, instead of 25. The error appears to have crept in after the proofs were settled, in replacing an im perfect letter. It was 26 in the last revise which I saw.

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Satisfaction of the House. The Queen's last speech to her people 29

9. Notes of Speeches on several occasions.

SPEECH ON BRINGING IN A BILL CONCERNING ASSURANCES

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