PREFACE. I HAVE already expressed my belief that this treatise is not Bacon's. In point of external evidence the case stands thus: 1. The only two MSS. I am aware of, Harl. MS. 1201. and Sloane MS. 4263., have no name of the author. They are different texts, though more resembling each other than either does the first printed one. 1 2. The imprimatur for the first edition at least it bears date the year of the first edition, is given by Archbishop Sancroft, cited in Blackburn's edition of Bacon, as follows: "June 3rd, 1629. Sam. Maunsell, utter barrister of the Middle Temple, having perused this book, attested it to be very useful to all young students of the law and worthy to be imprinted:" and then, "Lambethæ Junii 4° 1629, ut in aliena arte alieno nixus judicio, libelli hujus imprimendi potestatem facio. “Johannes Jefferay." This does not seem to me to be the way in which a work known or supposed to come from such an author would be spoken of or licensed; and, accordingly, 3. The first shape in which it appeared in that same year was anonymous, and (as appears by the preface) without any suspicion of the authorship, by way of companion to a fragment of Sir John Doderidge's English Lawyer. This latter is there entitled "The Lawyers' Light: or a due direction for the study of the law, &c., by the reverend and learned professor thereof, J. D. ;" and the Use of the Law is "annexed for affinity of the subject." The Preface is also anonymous, and begins thus: "I present unto you two children, the one whereof hath an author unknown, the other a father deceased." Now Doderidge was already dead, and must have been easily recognisable as "J. D." He would seem therefore to be the author referred to in the second branch of the sentence; and hence I conclude again that the author of the other Tract was unknown. 4. Both these treatises were next published by other parties, the "Assignees of John Moore, Esqre.," separately, and in consecutive years; Doderidge's treatise, - now complete and with its new title, in 1631, with a preface stating it "was heretofore obscurely printed by an imperfect copy from a then unknown author," and was now printed "in fair light by the author's own copy written (for the most part) with his own hand: " all of which I extract to show that these publishers knew the value of an authentic pedigree when they could furnish it. The other treatise, The Use of the Law, they published in 1630, annexed to the Maxims, then first published, but with no preface at all. There is a general title-page and also a particular one to each treatise ; and that to The Use of the Law has "by the Lord Verulam, Viscount of St. Albans." Now this cannot |
