would be no less acceptable to you, than, I persuade myself, they will be to the public. For it is scarce to be imagined, but that the bringing to Hight, from abscurity and oblivion, the remains of so eminent a person, will be thought an ac quisition not inferior to the discovery (if the ruins of Herculanum should afford such a trea sure) of a new set of the epistles of Cicero, whom our immortal countryman most remarkably resembled as an orator, a philosopher, a writer, a lawyer, and a statesman. The com→ munication of them to the public appearing to me a duty to it and the memory of the author, to whom could I, separately from the consideration of all personal connexions and inducements, so justly present them, as to him, whom every circumstance of propriety, and conformity of character, in the most valuable part of it, pointed out to me for that purpose? Similarity of genius; the same extent of knowledge in the laws of our own and other countries, enriched and adorned with all the stores of ancient and modern learning; the same eloquence at the bar and in the senate; an equal force of writing, shewn in a single work indeed, and Gundelding composed at a very early age, but decisive of a grand question of law and sanction of government, the grounds of which had never before been stated with due precision; and the most. successful discharge of the same offices of King's Council and Solicitor and Attorney-General. These reasons, Sir, give your name an unquestionable right to be prefixed to these posthumous pieces. And I hope, while I am performing this act of justice, I may be exmay cused the ambition of preserving my own name, by uniting it with those of BACON and YORKE. Your delicacy here restrains me from indulging myself farther in the language which truth and esteem would dictate. But I must be allowed to add a wish, in which every good man and lover of his country will join with me, that as there now remains but one step for you to complete that course of public service and glory, in which you have so closely followed your illustrious father, he, happy in the most most important circumstance of human life, the characters and fortunes of his children, longo ordine Nati,pod. Clari omnes patria pariter Virtute suaque, may live to see you possessed of that high station, which himself filled for almost twenty years, with a reputation superior to all the efforts of envy or party. Nor is it less to his honour (and may be it yours at a very distant period), that, though he thought proper to retire from that station in the full vigour of his abilities, he still continues to exert them in a more private situation, for the general benefit of his country; enjoying in it the noblest reward of his services, an unequalled authority, founded on the acknowledged concurrence of the greatest capacity, experience, and integrity. SIR, diw koj lim prippoo, and to Your most obliged PREFACE. As the reader will undoubtedly have some curio (a) This account is dated Nov. the 30th, 1678. |