PREFACE TO THE HISTORIA VENTORUM. BY ROBERT LESLIE ELLIS. THE Historia Ventorum was published in 1622 in a volume entitled "Historia Naturalis et Experimentalis ad condendam Philosophiam; sive Phænomena Universi." This volume was dedicated to Prince Charles, and contains beside the Historia Ventorum the titles of five similar histories, one or more of which Bacon proposed to publish month by month; namely, the Historiæ Densi et Rari; Gravis et Levis; Sympathic et Antipathic Rerum; Sulphuris, Mercurii, et Salis; et Vitae et Mortis. Under the title of each, except the last, is placed an aditus or preface-that of the Historia Vita et Mortis is omitted because, as we are told at the end of the volume,1 the history itself 1 "Aditus ad hanc historiam invenitur in historia ipsa, jam proxime sequente." But this comes from Dr. Rawley's reprint, published along with the Opera Moralia et Civilia in 1638, from which Mr. Montagu's copy is taken; and "jam proxime sequente" merely means "which is the next piece in this volume." The original edition, published by Bacon himself in 8vo in 1622, has the aditus to the Historia Vitæ et Mortis as well as the rest. The Historia Ventorum appears to have been published about the beginning of November, 1622; the Historia Vita et Mortis about the end of the following January. See Chamberlain's letter to Sir D. Carleton, 11. Feb. 13 VOL. III. with its preface was shortly, "jam proxime," to be published. It did not however appear until 1623. The Historia Ventorum is thus the first published part of the Historia Naturalis, which was to be the third division of the Instauratio. It begins with a list of topics, or subjects to be inquired into. Of these thirty-three are enumerated, and something is said in the course of the work with relation to each, but they are not all discussed fully, nor in the order in which they are set down. Bacon concludes the list by remarking that without more complete knowledge of the phenomena, some of the questions which he proposes cannot be answered. "Posteri," he concludes, "cætera videant.” The principal sources from which Bacon compiled the statements which he goes on to give are Pliny's Natural History, Aristotle's Problems, and Acosta's History of the Indies. Almost the whole of the sections on prognostics, which is one of the most complete, is taken from the eighteenth book of Pliny.. A number of scattered remarks come from the twenty-sixth section of the problems, the most remarkable being the statement that on the top of Athos there is always an absolute calm - so much so that letters traced in the ashes of the sacrifice performed there year by year were always found, on each succeeding occasion, undisturbed. He adds that this is also told with respect to Olympus. His authority for this addition to what Aristotle had said may have been Solinus; or Alexander Aphrodisiensis as quoted by Olympiodorus. Per 1622-3 (Court and Times of James 1. vol. ii. p. 362), and compare Bacon's letter to Buckingham, 24th (misprinted 4th in the common editions) of November, 1622.-J. S. |