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proper to make public. The reasons of his reserve appear, from Dr. Tenison's account (d) cited above, to have been, that he judged some papers touching "matters of state to tread too near to the heels of

truth, and to the times of the persons concerned : " and that he thought his lordship's letters concerning "his fall might be injurious to his honour, and cause "the old wounds of it to bleed anew." But this is a delicacy, which, though suitable to the age in which Dr. Rawley lived, and to the relation under which he had stood to his noble patron, ought to have no force in other times and circumstances, nor ever to be too much indulged to the prejudice of the rights of historical truth.

Dr. Tenison being, soon after the publication of the Baconiana, removed from the more private station of a country living to the vicarage of St. Martin's in the Fields, Westminster, and, after the revolution, advanced to the bishopric of Lincoln, and at last to the archbishopric of Canterbury, had scarce leisure, if he had been inclined, to select more of the papers of his admired Bacon. These, therefore, with the rest of his manuscripts, not already deposited in the library at Lambeth, were left by him in his last will, dated the 11th of April, 1715, to his chaplain, Dr. Edmund Gibson, then rector of Lambeth, and afterward successively bishop of Lincoln and London, and to Mr. (afterward Dr.) Benjamin Ibbot, who had succeeded Dr. Gibson as library-keeper to his grace. Dr. Ibbot dying (e) many years before Bishop Gibson, the whole (e) The 11th of April, 1725.

(d) Page 81.

collection of Archbishop Tenison's papers came under the disposition of that bishop, who directed his two executors, the late Dr. Bettesworth, dean of the Arches, and his eldest son, George Gibson, esq. to deposit them, with the addition of many others of his own collecting, in the manuscript library at Lambeth; and accordingly, after his lordship's death, which happened on the 6th of Sept. 1748, all these manuscripts were delivered by his said executors to Archbishop Herring, on the 21st of October of that year, and placed in the library on the 23rd of February following. But as they lay undigested in bundles, and in that condition were neither convenient for use, nor secure from damage, his grace, the present archbishop directed them to be methodized, and bound up in volumes with proper indexes, which was done by his learned librarian, Andrew Coltee Ducarel, LL.D. Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, to whose knowledge, industry, and love of history and antiquities, the valuable library of manuscripts of the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury is highly indebted for the order in which it is now arranged; and by whose obliging and communicative temper, it is rendered generally useful. Bishop Gibson's collection, including, what is the chief part of it, that of Archbishop Tenison, fills fourteen large volumes in folio. The eighth of these consists merely of Lord Bacon's papers.

Of them principally, the work, which I now offer the public, is formed; nor has any paper been admitted into it that had been published before, except two

of Lord Bacon's letters, which having been disguised and mutilated in all former impressions, were thought proper to be reprinted here, together with two other letters of his lordship; one on the remarkable case of Peacham, the other accompanying his present to King James I. of his Novum Organum. These letters I was unwilling to omit, because the collection in which they have lately appeared, intitled by the very learned and ingenius editor, Sir David Dalrymple, Bart. Memorials and Letters relating to the History of Britain in the reign of James the First, published from the Originals, at Glasgow, 1762, in 8vo. is likely to be much less known in England, from the smallness of the number of printed copies, than it deserves.

The general rule, which I have prescribed myself, of publishing only what is new, restrained me from adding those letters written in the earlier part of Mr. Francis Bacon's life, which I had before published from the originals, found among the papers of his brother Anthony, in the Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, from the year 1581 to her Death.

The example of the greatest men, in preserving in their editions of the classics the smallest remains of their writings, will be a full justification of my industry in collecting and inserting even the fragments of a writer equal to the most valuable of the ancients. Nor will the candid and intelligent object to the least considerable of the Duke of Buckingham's letters, since they acquire an importance from the rank and character of the writer, as well as from their carrying

on the series of his correspondence, acquainting us with new facts, or ascertaining old ones with additional evidence and circumstances, and shewing the extent of that authority and influence which his situation, as a favourite, gave him in all parts of the government, even as high as the seat of justice itself.

POSTCRIPT,

RELATING TO THE SECOND EDITION.

SINCE the former edition, there came into my hands, among the collections in print and manuscript, relating to Lord Bacon and his works, made by the late John Locker, esq. two letters of Dr. Tenison, afterward archbishop of Canterbury, which will enable me to give the public full satisfaction, in what manner that learned divine became possessed of the Letters, &c. of the noble author published by

me.

One of these Letters, the original, written to Mr. Richard Chiswell, the bookseller, for whom the Baconiana had been printed, is as follows:

“SIR,

Decemb. 16. 1682.

"I HAVE now looked over all the books and papers "in the box. In the books there are copies of

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Essays, Maxims of Law, &c. all printed already:

"but they contain some things fit to be printed; "and they and the letters will make a handsome

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folio; which I doubt not but will turn to account. "For the Letters, there are divers of Sir Thomas

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Meautys, &c. worth nothing: but there are more "than forty letters to the Duke of Buckingham, and "some of the Duke of Buckingham to him.

"There are eight or ten to King James. There "are three or four to Gondomar, and Gondomar's answer to one of them.

"There are two or three letters to Bishop Wil"liams, and two from him.

"There is Lord Bacon's letter to Casaubon in "Latin.

"There is one essay never printed. "All which will be well accepted.

"After the holy days I will methodize all, and put "all letters of the same date together (for as yet << they are in confusion) and then we will take "farther resolutions about them. I will get an after

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noon (if God permit) to see the remaining papers "in Bartholomew-Close. The Greek MS. will not prove much worth. The latter and greater part "is only a piece of Tzetzes.

"It is necessary that you procure for me Tobie "Mathew's printed letters, for here are also ten "of his to Lord Bacon; and I know not which they are yet printed. Also I shall want a copy of the Essays printed in 12mo. 1663, printed for Thomas

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