Bacon's Essays, with annotations by Richard Whately and notes and a glossarial index, by Franklin Fiske Heard.

X PREFACE.
that they are indeed a new work. I thought it therefore agreeable to my affectionW and obligation to your
Grace, to prefix your name before them, both in English
and in Latin. For I do conceive that the Latin volume
of them (being in the universal language) may last as
long as books last."
The letter to Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester,
dedicatory to " An Advertisement touching an Holy
War" (1622) contains the fullest account of Bacon's
designs as a writer which we have from his own pen.
He writes: "As for my Essays, and some other particulars of that nature, I count them but as the recreation
of my other studies, and in that sort purpose to continue
them; though I am not ignorant that those kind of
writings would with less pains and embracement (perhaps) yield more lustre and reputation unto my name
than those other which I have in hand. But I account
the use that a man should seek of the publishing of his
own writings before his death to be but an untimely
anticipation of that which is proper to follow a man,
and not go along with him."
Of the translation of the Essays into Latin, Bacon
thus speaks in a letter to Mr. Toby Matthew, written
apparently about the end of June 1623: "It is true
my labours are now most set to have those Works
which I have formerly published, as that of' Advancement of Learning,' that of' Henry VII.,' that of the'Essays,' being retractate and made more perfect, well
translated into Latin by the help of some good pens
which forsake me not. For these modern languages
will, at one time or other, play the bankrupt with books;