time when he finished his work; for which (but for one circumstance which I shall mention presently) I should think the year 1603 as likely a date as any; for we know from a letter of Bacon's, dated 3rd July 1603, that he had at that time resolved "to meddle as little as possible in the King's causes," and to "put his ambition wholly upon his pen ; and we know from the Advancement of Learning that in 1605 he was engaged upon a work entitled "The Interpretation of Nature:" to which I may add that there is in the Lambeth Library a copy of a letter from Bacon to Lord Kinlosse, dated 25th March, 1603, and written in the same hand as this manuscript.

Bacon's corrections, if I may judge from the character of the handwriting, were inserted a little later; for it is a fact that about the beginning of James's reign his writing underwent a remarkable

lines are apparently by another hand, probably of later date, certainly in ink of a different colour, and paler. The word "Philosophy" is in Bacon's own hand, written lightly in the upper corner at the left, and is no doubt merely a docket inserted afterwards when he was sorting his papers. What connexion there was between the note and the MS. it is impossible to say. But it is evidently a careful memorandum of something, set down by somebody when the MS. was at hand; and so many of the characters resemble those adopted to represent the planets and the signs of the zodiac, that one is led to suspect in it a note of the positions of the heavenly bodies at the time of some remarkable accident; perhaps the plague, of which 30,578 persons died in London, during the year ending 22nd December, 1603. The period of the commencement, the duration, or the cessation of such an epidemic might naturally be so noted. Now three of the characters clearly represent respectively Mercury, Aquarius, and Sagittarius. The sign for Jupiter, as we find it in old books, is so like a 4, that the first figure of 45 may very well have been meant for it. The monogram at the beginning of the line bears a near resemblance to the sign of Capricorn in its most characteristic feature. And the mark over the sign of Aquarius appears to be an abbreviation of that which usually represents the Sun. (The blot between 1603 and B is nothing; being only meant to represent a figure 6 blotted out with the finger before the ink was dry.) Suspecting therefore that the writing contained a note of the positions of Mercury and Jupiter in the year 1603, I sent a cory to a scientific friend and asked him if from such data he could determine the month indicated. He found upon a rough calculation (taking account of mean motions only) that Jupiter did enter the sign of Sagittarius about the 10th of August, 1603, and continued there for about a twelvemonth; that the Sun entered Aquarius about the 12th or 13th of January, 1603-4; and that Mercury was about the 16th or 17th of the same month in the 26th or 27th degree of Capricorn :- coincidences which would have been almost conclusive as to the date indicated, if Capricorn had only stood where Aquarius does, and vice versâ. But their position as they actually stood in the MS. is a formidable, if not fatal, objection to the interpretation.

According to another opinion with which I have been favoured, the first monogram is a nota bene; the next group may mean Dies Mercurii (Wednesday) 26th January, 1603; and the rest refers to something not connected with astronomy. But to this also there is a serious objection. The 26th of January, 1603-4, was a Friday; and it seems to me very improbable that any Englishman would have described the preceding January as belonging to the year 1603. Bacon himself invariably dated according to the civil year, and the occasional use of the historical year in loose memoranda would have involved all his dates in confusion. I should think it more probable that the writer (who may have been copying a kind of notation with which he was not familiar) miscopied the sign of Venus into that of Mercury; in which case it would mean Friday, 26th January, 1603-4. But even then the explanation would be unsatisfactory, as leaving so much unexplained. Those however who are familiar with old MSS. relating to such subjects may probably be able to interpret the whole.

change, from the hurried Saxon hand full of large sweeping curves and with letters imperfectly formed and connected, which he wrote in Elizabeth's time, to a small, neat, light, and compact one, formed more upon the Italian model which was then coming into fashion; and when these corrections were made it is evident that this new character had become natural to him and easy. It is of course impossible to fix the precise date of such a change, the more so because his autographs of this period are very scarce, -but whenever it was that he corrected this manuscript, it is evident that he then considered it worthy of careful revision. He has not merely inserted a sentence here and there, altered the numbers of the chapters, and added words to the headings in order to make the description more exact; but he has taken the trouble to add the running title wherever it was wanting, thus writing the words "of the Interpretation of Nature" at full length not less than eighteen times over; and upon the blank space of the titlepage he has written out a complete table of contents.1 In short, if he had been preparing the manuscript for the press or for a fresh transcript, he could not have done it more completely or carefully, only that he has given no directions for altering the order of the chapters so as to make it correspond with the numbers. And hence I infer that up to the time when he made these corrections, this was the form of the great work on which he was engaged: it was a work concerning the Interpretation of Nature; which was to begin where the Novum Organum begins; and of which the first book was to include all the preliminary considerations preparatory to the exposition of the formula.

I place this fragment here in deference to Mr. Ellis's decided opinion that it was written before the Advancement of Learning. The positive ground indeed which he alleges in support of that conclusion I am obliged to set aside, as founded, I think, upon a misapprehension; and the supposition that no part of it was written later involves a difficulty which I cannot yet get over to my own satisfaction. But that the body of it was written earlier I see no reason to doubt; and if so, this is its proper place.

The particular point on which I venture to disagree with Mr. Ellis I have stated in a note upon his preface to the Novum Organum, promising at the same time a fuller explanation of the grounds of my own conclusion, which I will now give.

The question is, whether the "Inventory" in the 10th chapter of Valerius Terminus was to have exhibited a general survey of the state of knowledge corresponding with that which fills the second book of the Advancement of Learning. I think not.

1 See the facsimile. I am inclined to think that there was an interval between the writing of the first eleven titles and the last two; during which the Italian character had become more familiar to him.

It is true indeed that the title of that 10th chapter,-namely, "The Inventory, or an enumeration and view of inventions already discovered and in use, with a note of the wants and the nature of the supplies, has at first sight a considerable resemblance to the description of the contents of the second book of the Advancement of Learning, — namely, “A general and faithful perambulation of learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the industry of Man; wherein nevertheless my purpose is at this time to note only omissions and deficiencies, and not to ። But an make any redargutions of errors," and so on. tion of Inventions" is not the same thing as 66 a perambulation of Learning;" and it will be found upon closer examination that the "Inventory" spoken of in Valerius Terminus does really correspond to one, and one only, of the fifty-one Desiderata set down at the end of the De Augmentis; viz. that Inventarium opum humanarum, which was to be an appendix to the Magia naturalis. See De Aug. iii. 5. This will appear clearly by comparing the descriptions of the two.

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In the Advancement of Learning Bacon tells us that there are two points of much purpose pertaining to the department of Natural Magic: the first of which is, "That there be made a calendar resembling an Inventory of the estate of man, containing all the Inventions, being the works or fruits of nature or art, which are now extant and of which man is already possessed; out of which doth naturally result a note what things are yet held impossible or not invented; which calendar will be the more artificial and serviceable if to every reputed impossibility you add what thing is extant which cometh the nearest in degree to that impossibility to the end that by these optatives and essentials man's inquiry may be the more awake in deducing direction of works from the speculation of causes."

The Inventory which was to have been inserted in the 10th chapter of Valerius Terminus is thus introduced :-" The plainest method and most directly pertinent to this intention will be to make distribution of sciences, arts, inventions, works, and their portions, according to the use and tribute which they yield and render to the condition of man's life; and under those several uses, being as several offices of provisions, to charge and tax what may be reasonably exacted or demanded, and then upon those charges and taxations to distinguish and present as it were in several columns what is extant and already found, and what is defective and further to be provided. Of which provisions because in many of them, after the manner of slothful and faulty accomptants, it will be returned by way of excuse that no such are to be had, it will be fit

the

to give some light of the nature of the supplies; whereby it will evidently appear that they are to be compassed and procured." And that the calendar was to deal, not with knowledge in general, but only with arts and sciences of invention in its more restricted sense -the pars operativa de natura (De Aug. iii. 5.)- appears no less clearly from the opening of the 11th chapter, which was designed immediately to follow the "Inventory." "It appeareth then what is now in proposition, not by general circumlocution but by particular note. No former philosophy," &c. &c. "but the revealing and discovering of new inventions and operations, nature and kinds of which inventions have been described as they could be discovered," &c. If further evidence were required of the exact resemblance between the Inventory of Valerius Terminus and the Inventarium of the Advancement and the De Augmentis, I might quote the end of the 9th chapter, where the particular expressions correspond, if possible, more closely still. But I presume that the passages which I have given are enough; and that the opinion which I have elsewhere expressed as to the origin of the Advancement of Learning, -namely, that the writing of it was a by-thought and no part of the work on the Interpretation of Nature as originally designed,-will not be considered inconsistent with the evidence afforded by these fragments.

That the Valerius Terminus was composed before the Advancement, though a conclusion not deducible from the Inventory, is nevertheless probable: but to suppose that it was so composed exactly in its present form, involves, as I said, a difficulty; which I will now state. The point is interesting, as bearing directly upon the developement in Bacon's mind of the doctrine of Idols; concerning which see preface to Novum Organum, note C. But I have to deal with it here merely as bearing upon the probable date of this fragment.

In treating of the department of Logic in the Advancement, Bacon notices as altogether wanting "the particular elenches or cautions against three false appearances" or fallacies by which the mind of man is beset: the " caution" of which, he says, "doth extremely import the true conduct of human judgment." These false appearances he describes, though he does not give their names; and they correspond respectively to what he afterwards called the Idols of the Tribe, the Cave, and the Forum. But he makes no mention of the fourth; namely, the Idols of the Theatre. Now in Valerius Terminus we find two separate passages in which the Idols are mentioned; and in both all four are enumerated, and all by name; though what he afterwards called Idols of the Forum, he there calls Idols of the Palace; and it seems to me very unlikely that, if when

he wrote the Advancement he had already formed that classification he should have omitted all mention of the Idols of the Theatre; for though it is true that that was not the place to discuss them, and therefore in the corresponding passage of the De Augmentis they are noticed as to be passed by "for the present," yet they are noticed by name, and in all Bacon's later writings the confutation of them holds a very prominent place.

To me the most probable explanation of the fact is this. I have already shown that between the composition and the transcription of these fragments the design of the work appears to have undergone a considerable change; the order of the chapters being entirely altered. We have only to suppose therefore that they were composed before the Advancement and transcribed after, and that in preparing them for the transcriber Bacon made the same kind of alterations in the originals which he afterwards made upon the transcript, and the difficulty disappears. Nothing would be easier than to correct "three" into "four," and insert "the Idols of the Theatre" at the end of the sentence.

And this reminds me (since I shall have so much to do with these questions of date) to suggest a general caution with regard to them all; namely, that in the case of fragments like these, the comparison of isolated passages can hardly ever be relied upon for evidence of the date or order of composition, or of the progressive developement of the writer's views; and for this simple reason, we can never be sure that the passages as they now stand formed part of the original writing. The copy of the fragment which we have may be (as there is reason to believe this was) a transcript from several loose papers, written at different periods and containing alterations or additions made from time to time. We may know perhaps that when Bacon published the Advancement of Learning he was ignorant of some fact with which he afterwards became acquainted; we may find in one of these fragments, say the Temporis Partus Masculus,- a passage implying acquaintance with that fact. Does it follow that the Temporis Partus Masculus was written after the Advancement of Learning? No; for in looking over the manuscript long after it was written, he may have observed and corrected the error. And we cannot conclude that he at the same time altered the whole composition so as to bring it into accordance with the views he then held; for that might be too long a work. He may have inserted a particular correction, but meant to rewrite the whole; and if so, in spite of the later date indicated by that particular passage, the body of the work would still represent a stage in his opinions anterior to the Advancement of Learning.

I have felt some doubt whether in printing this fragment, I should follow the example of Stephens, who gave it exactly as he found