The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

EDITOR'S PREFACE. 273
performance, Sir Francis Bacon gave a singular proof of his capacity to please all parties in literature,
as in his political conduct he stood fair with all the parties in the nation. The admirers of antiquity
were charmed with this discourse, which seems expressly calculated to justify their admiration; and,
on the other hand, their opposites were no less pleased with a piece, from which they thought they
could demonstrate, that the sagacity of a modern genius, had found out much better meanings for the
ancients than ever were meant by them."
And Mallet, in his Life of Bacon, says, "In 1610 he published another treatise entitled
Of the Wisdom of the Ancients. This work bears the same stamp of an original and inventive genius with his other performances. Resolving not to tread in the steps of thcse who
had gone before him, men, according to his own expression, not learned beyond certain commonplaces, he strikes out a new tract for himself, and enters into the most secret recesses of this wild
and shadowy region, so as to appear new on a known and beaten subject. Upon the whole, if
we cannot bring ourselves readily to believe that there is all the physical, moral, and political meaning veiled under t';ose fables of antiquity, which he has discovered in them, we must own that it
required no common penetration to be mistaken with so great an appearance of probability on his
side. Though it still remains doubtful whether the ancients were so knowing as he attempts to
show they were, the variety and depth of his own knowledge are, in that very attempt unquestionable."
In the year 16;19, this tract was translated by Sir Arthur Georges. Prefixed to the work are two
letters; the one to the Earl of Salisbury, the other to the University of Cambridge, which Georges
omits, and dedicates his translation to the High and Illustrious Princess the Lady Elizabeth of
Great Britain, Duchess of Baviare, Countess Palatine of Rheine, and Chief Electress of the Empire. As this translation was published during the life of Lord Bacon, by a great admirer of his
works, and as it is noticed by Archbishop Tenison, I have inserted it in this volume. I am not certain that I have done right, as it is my intention, with the translation of all the works, to publish a
new translation of these fables; for which I am indebted to a member of the University of Oxford,
who has lately so eminently distinguished himself for his classical attainments, and who will I trust
forgive this expression of my affectionate respect for his virtuous exertions. It would be grateful to
me to say more.
$ 2.
CIVIL HISTORY.
At an early period of his life, Bacon was impressed with the importance of a History of Englanat
from the union of the Roses to the union of the Kingdoms. In the Advancement of Learning, published in 1605, he says, ", But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very worthy, but the
greatest part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care of foreign stories to foreign states, because I will
not be, curiosus in aliena republica,' I cannot fail to represent to your majesty, the unworthiness of
the history of England in the main continuance thereof, and the partiality and obliquity of that of
Scotland, in the latest and largest author that I have seen; supposing that it would be honour for
your majesty, and a work very memorable, if this island bf Great Brittany, as it is now joined in
monarchy for the ages to come: so were joined in one history for the times passed, after the manner
of the sacred history, which draweth down the story of the ten tribes, and of the two tribes, as twins
together. And if it shall seem that the greatness of this work may make it less exactly performed,
there is an excellent period of much smaller compass of time, as to the story of England, that is to
say, from the uniting of the roses, to the uniting of the kingdoms; a portion of time wherein, to my
understanding, there hath been the rarest varieties that in like number of successions of any hereditary monarchy hath been known: for it beginneth with the mixed adoption of a crown by arms and
title; an entry by battle, an establishment by marriage: and therefore times answerable, like waters
after a tempest, full of working and swelling, though without extremity of storm: but well passed
through by the wisdom of the pilot, being one of the most sufficient kings of all the number. Then
followeth the reign of a king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had much intermixture with the
affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining them variably; in whose time also began that great alteration in the state ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage. Then the reign of a
minor: then an offer of an usurpation, though it was but as' febris ephemera:' then the reign of a
queen matched with a foreigner: then of a queen that lived solitary and unmarried, and yet her go
vernment so masculine that it had greater impression and operation upon the states abroad than it
any ways received from thence. And now last, this most happy and glorious event that this island
of Britain, divided from all the world, should be thus united in itself: and that oracle of rest, given
to AEneas.' Antiquam exquirite matrem,' should now be performed and fulfilled upon the nations of
England and Scotland, being now reunited in the ancient mother name of Britain, as a ftll period
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