III.

ESSAYS ATTRIBUTED TO BACON WITHOUT AUTHORITY.

At the end of the Resuscitatio (published in 1657) Dr. Rawley gives what he entitles "A perfect list of his Lordship's true works both in English and Latin ; which he concludes with these words: "as for other pamphlets, whereof there are several, put forth under his Lordship's name, they are not to be owned for his."

Any work therefore (not contained in this list) which had appeared before 1657 in any publication which Dr. Rawley knew of, and had been there ascribed to Bacon, must be regarded as distinctly denied by him to be Bacon's.

Now in December 1642, in which year several of Bacon's smaller political pieces were published in separate pamphlets without any editor's name or any account of the source from which they were taken, there appeared among others a 4to of eight pages with the following title: An Essay of a King, with an explanation what manner of persons those should be that are to execute the power or ordinance of the King's Prerogative. Written by the Right Honourable Francis, Lord Verulam Viscount Saint Alban. December 2. London, Printed for Richard Best, 1642.

In 1648 appeared a 4to volume of 103 pages, entitled The Remaines of the Right Honorable Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount of St. Albanes, sometimes Lord Chancellour of England; being Essayes and severall letters to severall great Personages, and other pieces of various high concernment not heretofore published. A table whereof for the reader's more ease is adjoyned. London, printed by B. Alsop for Laurence Chapman and are to be sold at his shop neer the Savoy in the Strand, 1648.

Most of the pieces in the volume are genuine, and were afterwards published by Rawley from the originals. And it is probably to this collection that he alludes, when he alleges as a reason for publishing some things which Bacon himself did not design for publication, that "through the loose keeping of his Lordship's papers whilst he lived, divers surreptitious copies have been taken; which have since employed the press with sundry corrupt and mangled editions; whereby nothing hath been more difficult than to find the Lord Saint Alban in the Lord Saint Alban; and which have presented (some of them) rather a fardle of nonsense, than any true expression of his Lordship's happy vein ;" and that therefore he "thought himself in a sort tied to vindicate those injuries and wrongs done to his Lordship's pen; and at once, by setting forth the true and genuine writings themselves, to prevent the like invasions for the time to come. But whatever the publications may have been to which he alluded, it is hardly conceivable that the existence of this volume was unknown to him; and we must therefore regard all those pieces which it contains, and which are not directly or by implication contained in

his own "perfect list," as included in his general repudiation. It does not, indeed, follow that none of them are genuine; because Rawley may have been mistaken; but that every such piece was in his opinion spurious, can hardly be disputed: and he had such very good means of judging, that his opinion is not to be set aside except upon very strong evidence.

Now the two first pieces in the "Remains" are the contents of the pamphlet of which I have quoted the title. Standing where they do, they could not have been overlooked: yet neither of them is to be found in any of the publications cited in Rawley's "perfect list." The inevitable inference is, that Rawley did not believe them to be the work of Bacon; and certainly in this case there is no evidence internal or external which can justify us in overruling his judgment. The Essay of a King, does indeed contain several sentences which are much in Bacon's manner, and which might have been written by him. But the total composition does not read like his; and even if the external evidences had been equally balanced (which is by no means the case; for the fact that somebody thought it was Bacon's cannot be taken as a counterpoise to the fact that Rawley thought it was not), I should myself have been inclined, upon consideration of the internal evidence alone, to reject it.

The other piece is still less like Bacon's work. Mr. Heath, finding it printed among his writings, and knowing nothing of its history, was at once led to doubt its genuineness, from a consideration of the matter and opinions as well as the style. Had I thought its pretensions more reasonable, I should have reserved it for another place for it has no affinity to the class of

works with which we are at present dealing. But as my only business with it is to discredit its pretensions to be admitted among Bacon's works at all, I have thought it better not to separate it from its companion, but to print it here in connexion with the evidence on which the question of its authenticity rests.

Passing over for the present a little piece entitled Short Notes for Civil Conversation (the claims of which to a place among Bacon's writings have other evidence to support them, and will be explained hereafter), we come next to a very remarkable composition-An Essay on Death. This stands fourth in the volume, and being also too conspicuous to have been overlooked must be regarded as disclaimed by Dr. Rawley. I do not know whether it had been printed before. It is an eloquent and touching composition, very peculiar in style, and marked with a "humorous sadness" which reminds me of nobody so much as Sir Thomas Browne. Sir Thomas Browne was born in 1605, and therefore there is nothing in the date to preclude the supposition that he was the author of it. How far his never having claimed it is to be taken as an objection, or what other difficulties the supposition may involve, I am not well enough acquainted with his biography to judge. But whoever may have written it, I am fully convinced that Bacon did not. Nothing is less probable than that he would have written so grave a thing on so grave a subject merely as an exercise in imitating another man's style; and the style is so unlike his own, that if we suppose him the author of it we must suppose no less. And the only reason we have for imputing it to him is, that within twenty-four years after his death, there was somebody or other who thought it was his;

against which must be set the fact that Rawley thought it was not.

Of two other pieces commonly printed among Bacon's works, and ascribed to him solely, I believe, on the authority of this same volume (to which nobody stands sponsor), the Letter of Advice to Sir Edward Coke on occasion of his being removed from the Chief Justiceship, and a little tract entitled The Characters of a believing Christian, in Paradoxes and seeming Contradictions, I will speak more fully when they come before me in their proper places. That the letter to Coke was written by Bacon, no one can believe who knows what it is about; but this will be most easily explained in connexion with the events to which it relates. And the pretensions of the Christian Paradoxes to a place among Bacon's writings, resting as they do entirely upon internal evidence of style, will be best estimated upon comparison with his other writings on kindred subjects.

AN ESSAY OF A KING,

Written by Sir Francis Bacon.

1. A KING is a mortal God on Earth, unto whom the living God hath lent his own name as a great honour: But withal told him he should die like a man, lest he should be proud and flatter himself, that God hath with his name imparted unto him his nature also.

2. Of all kinds of men, God is least beholding unto them, for he doth most for them, and they do ordinarily least for him.

3. A King that would not feele his Crown too heavy