The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

LORD BACON'S WORKS
ESSAYS OR COUNSELS,
CIVIL AND MORAL.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE MY VERY GOOD LO. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
HIS GRACE, LO. HIGH ADMIRALL OF ENGLAND.
EXCELLENT Lo.
Salomon saies; A good name is as a precious oyntment; and I assure myselfe, such wil your Grace's
name bee, with posteritie. For your fortune, and merit both, haue beene eminent. And you haue
planted things, that are like to last. I doe now publish my Essayes; which, of all other workes,
have beene most currant: For that, as it seemes, they come home, to mens businesse, and bosomes.
I haue enlarged them, both in number, and weight; so that they are indeed a new work. I thought
it therefore agreeable, to my affection, and obligation to your Grace, to prefix your name before
them, both in English, and in Latine. For I doe conceiue, that the Latine Volume of them (being
in the Vniuersal Language) may last, as long as Bookes last. My Instauration, I dedicated to the
King: My Historie of Henry the Seventh, (which I haue now translated into Latine) and my
Portions of Naturall History, to the Prince: And these I dedicate to your Grace: Being of the best
Fruits, that by the good encrease, which God gives to my Pen and Labours, I could yeeld. God
leade your Grace by the Hand. Your Graces most Obliged and Faithful Seruant,
FR. ST. ALBAN.
EDITORS PREFACE
TO
1. The Essays. 3. Filum Labyrinthi.
2. Meditationes Sacrte. 4. N3equela Chartarum.
3. The Colours of Good and Evil. 5. Miscellaneous Tracts.
4. Miscellaneous Tracts upon Human Philoso- 1. Apophthegmes.
phy. 2. Ornamenta Rationalia.
1. In Praise of Knowledge. 3. Sentences.
2. Valerius Terminus, or the Interpreta- 4. Notes for Conversation.
tion of Nature. 5. An Essay on Death.
~ 1.
THE ESSAYS.
The first edition of the Essays was published in the year 1597. It is entitled1
" Essayes.
Religious Meditations.
Places of perswasion and
disswasion.
Seene and allowed.
AT LONDON,
Printed for Humfrey Hooper, and are
to be sold at the blacke Beare
in Chauncery Lane.
1597."
I There is a copy of this. edition at Cambridge, and in the Bodleian.
VOL. I.-I A 1