To Mr. ANTHONY BACON, his dear Brother. Loving and beloved Brother, I DO now, like some that have an orchard ill neighboured, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing. These fragments of my conceits were going to print; to labour the stay of them had been troublesome, and subject to interpretation; to let them pass had been to adventure the wrong they might receive by untrue copies, or by some garnishment which it might please any that should set them forth to bestow upon them. Therefore I held it best discretion to publish them myself, as they passed long ago from my pen, without any further disgrace than the weakness of the author. And as I did ever hold, there might be as great a vanity in retiring and withdrawing mens conceits, except they be of some nature, from the world, as in obtruding them: so in these particulars I have played myself the inquisitor, and find nothing to my understanding in them contrary or infectious to the state of religion, or manners, but rather, as I suppose, medicinable. Only I disliked now to put them out, because they will be like the late new half-pence, which though the silver were good, yet the pieces were small. But since they would not stay with their master, but would needs travel abroad, I have preferred them to you that are next myself; dedicating them, such as they are, to our love, in the depth whereof, I assure you, I sometimes wish your infirmities translated upon myself, that her majesty might have the service of so active and able a mind; and I might be with excuse confined to these contemplations and studies, for which I am fittest: so commend I you to the preservation of the divine Majesty. From my chamber at Gray's-Inn, this 30th of January, 1597. Your intire loving Brother, FRAN. BACON. Tomy loving Brother, Sir JOHN CONSTABLE, Knight. My last Essays I dedicated to my dear brother, Mr. Anthony Bacon, who is with God. Looking amongst my papers this vacation, I found others of the same nature: which if I myself shall not suffer to be lost, it seemeth the world will not, by the often printing of the former. Missing my brother, I found you next; in respect of bond both of near alliance, and of strait friendship and society, and particularly of communication in studies: wherein I must acknowledge myself beholden to you. For as my business found rest in my contemplations, so my contemplations ever found rest in your loving conference and judgment. So wishing you all good, I remain 1612. Your loving brother and friend, To the right honourable my very good lord the duke of BUCKINGHAM, his grace, lord high admiral of England. Excellent Lord, SOLOMON says, A good name is as a precious ointment; and I assure myself such will your grace's name be with posterity. For your fortune and merit both have been eminent: and you have planted things that are like to last. I do now publish my Essays; which of all my other works have been most current : for that, as it seems, they come home to mens business and bosoms. I have enlarged them both in number and weight; so that they are indeed a new work. I thought it therefore agreeable to my affection and obligation to your grace, to prefix your name before them both in English and in Latin: For I do conceive, that the Latin volume of them, being in the universal language, may last as long as books last. My Instauration I dedicated to the king: my History of Henry the Seventh, which I have now also translated into Latin, and my portions of Natural History, to the prince: and these I dedicate to your grace; being of the best fruits, that by the good increase which God gives to my pen and labours I could yield. God lead your grace by the hand. 1625. Your grace's most obliged and faithful servant, ESSAYS CIVIL AND MORAL. I. OF TRUTH. WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth; nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon mens thoughts; that doth bring lyes in favour: but a natural though corrupt love of the lye itself. One of the later school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lyes; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lye's sake. But I cannot tell this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth not shew the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that sheweth best by day: but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lye doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of mens minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like; but it would leave the minds of a number of men, poor shrunken things; full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing |