Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

I have been allwaies at his request.

His knowledg lieth about him.

Such thoughts I would exile into

my dreames.

A good crosse poynt but the woorst cinq a pase.
He will never doe his tricks clean.

A proper young man and so will he be while he lives. 2. of these fowre take them where yow will.

I have knowne the tyme and it was not half an howre ago.

Pyonner in the myne of truth.

As please the painter.

A nosce teipsū (a chiding or disgrace.

Valew me not the lesse bycause I am yours.

Is it a small thing y' &c. (cannot yow not be content, an hebraisme.

What els? Nothing lesse.

It is not the first untruth I have heard reported nor it is not the first truth I have heard denied.

I will proove X why goe and proove it.

Minerall wytts strong poyson yf they be not corrected. O the '

[ocr errors][merged small]

Mought it please God that. fr. (I would to God.

Never may it please yow.

As good as the best.

I would not but yow had doone it × But shall I doe it

againe.

The sonne of somew'. Sp.

To freme (to sigh (?) Sp.

To cherish or endear.

To undeceive. Sp. To disabuse 1

deliver and unwrapped.

To discount (to cleere.
Brazed (impudent.

Brawned seared unpayned.
Vice light (Twylight.
banding (factions.
Remooving (remuant).
A third person (a broker.
A nose cut of; tucked up.

His disease hath certen traces.

To plaine him on (?).

Ameled (fayned, counterfett in the best kynd. Having the upper grownd (awcthority.

His resorts (his conceyts.

It may be well last for it hath lasted well.

Those are great with yow that are great by yow.

The avenues.

A back-thought.

Baragan (perpetuo juvenis).

A Bonance (a caulme.

To drench, to potion (to infect.

Haggard in sauvages.

Infistuled (made hollow with malign dealing.

The ayre of his behavio'; fashons.

1 An interlineation, written under Sp.

VII.

There are two other papers in the same bundle which are worth printing, because they help to show the sort of use Bacon made of these rough collections. One of them (fo. 114.) is dated 27th January 1595 (that is 1595-6), about fourteen months after the commencement of the Promus, but appears to have been revised and corrected at a later period. It seems to be a rudiment or fragment of one of those collections by way of "provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech and readiness of invention” which he recommends in the Advancement of Learning, and more at large in the De Augmentis (lib. vi. c. 3.) under the head of Rhetoric; and which, he says, "appeareth to be of two sorts; the one in resemblance to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a shop of things ready made up, both to be applied to that which is frequent and most in request: the former of these I will call antitheta and the latter formulæ.

"Antitheta are theses argued pro et contra, wherein men may be more large and laborious; but in such as are able to do it, to avoid prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments to be cast up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited, but to be as skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be used; supplying authorities and examples by reference.

"Formula are but decent and apt passages and conveyances of speech, which may serve indifferently for differing subjects; as of preface, conclusion, digression, transition, excusation, &c. For as in buildings there is great pleasure and use in the well-casting of

the stair-cases, entries, doors, windows, and the like: so in speech, the conveyances and passages are of special ornament and effect."1

Of these antitheta, a considerable collection is given in the De Augmentis by way of example. The Analogia Cæsaris contains several examples of these formulæ. The paper before us seems to belong rather to the former class. The sentences appear to have been written in the first instance consecutively, without any note of the subjects to which they are to be referred. The titles have been added afterwards in the margin. I distinguish them here by Italics.

FORMULARIES, PROMUS. 27 Jan. 1595.

Against conceyt of difficulty or impossibility. Tentantes ad Trojam pervenere Graii.

Atque omnia pertentare.

Abstinence and negatives.

Qui in agone contendit a multis abstinet.

All the comaundmts. negative save two.

Curious, busy without judgm', good direction.

Parerga; moventes sed nil promoventes, operosities, nil ad sumam.

Claudus in via.

To give the grownd in bowling.

Like tempring with phisike, a good diett much better.

VOL. XIV.

1 Advancement of Learning, Book 2.

3

Zeal, affectio, alacrity.

Omnia possū in eo qui me confortat.

Possunt quia posse vident'.

Exposition of not overweening but overwilling.
Goddes presse; voluntaries.

Detraction.

Chester's wytt to deprave, and otherwise not wyse.
Hast, impatience.

In actions as in wayes the neerest y° fowlest.

On the back of the sheet is written "fragments of Elegancyes."

The other paper (fo. 108.) bears no date. It is a commencement of a collection of antitheta, the pro and contra being set down in opposite columns, under their proper heads. It is very fairly written in Bacon's own hand, and large blank spaces are left between the several heads, as if for further insertions; yet it seems to have been entirely rejected afterwards, for though some of the questions are handled in the collection of antitheta given in the De Augmentis, none of these sentences are introduced there, or not in the same relation.

Upon Impatience of Audience.

Verbera sed audi.
Auribus mederi difficilli-

mum.

Noluit intelligere ut bene

ageret.

The fable of the Syrenes. Placidasque viri deus obstruit aures.

« AnteriorContinuar »