the Low Countries, Denmark, divers of the princes of Germany, and others. As for the comparison of Spain, as it was then and as it is now, you will for good respects forbear to speak only you will say this, that Spain was then reputed to have the wisest council of Europe, and not a council that will come at the whistle of a favourite.

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The remaining pieces that come under the head of Bacon's Political Writings are the following:-'Speech in Parliament, 39 of Elizabeth [1597], upon the motion of Subsidy,' printed in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657); A Proclamation drawn for his Majesty's First Coming in [1603], prepared but not used,' in Stephens's Second Collection (1734); A Draught of a Proclamation touching his Majesty's Style, 2do Jacobi [1604], prepared, not used,' in Stephens's Second Collection; A Speech made by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, chosen by the Commons to present a Petition touching Purveyors; delivered to his Majesty in the Withdrawing-Chamber at Whitehall, in the Parliament held Imo et 2do Jacobi [1603], the First Session,' in the First Part of the Resuscitatio; A Speech used by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, in the Honourable House of Commons, 5to Jacobi [Feb. 14th, 1607], concerning the article of the General Naturalization of the Scottish Nation,' in the First Part of the Resuscitatio; 'A Speech used by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, in the Lower House of Parliament, by occasion of a motion concerning the Union of Laws [1606 or 1607?], in the First Part of the Resuscitatio; ‘A Report made by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, in the House of Commons, of a Speech delivered by the Earl of Salisbury, and another Speech delivered by the Earl of Northampton, at a Conference concerning the Petition of the Merchants upon the Spanish Grievances, Parliament 5to Jacobi' [1607], in the First Part of the Resuscitatio; 'A Certificate to his Majesty, touching the Projects of Sir Stephen Proctor relating to the Penal Laws,' in Stephens's Second Collection; A Speech used to the King by his Majesty's Solicitor, being chosen by the Commons as their mouth and messenger for the presenting to his Majesty the Instrument or Writing of their

Grievances, in the Parliament 7 Jacobi' [1609], in the First Part of the Resuscitatio; 'A Speech of the King's Solicitor, used unto the Lords at a Conference, by commission from the Commons, moving and persuading the Lords to join with the Commons in Petition to the King to obtain liberty to treat of a Composition with his Majesty for Wards and Tenures, in the Parliament 7 Jacobi ' [1609], in the First Part of the Resuscitatio; A Frame of Declaration for the Master of the Wards at his First Sitting,' in Stephens's Second Collection; Directions for the Master of the Wards to observe for his Majesty's better service and the general good' [issued after February 1611], in Stephens's Second Collection; A Speech of the King's Solicitor, persuading the House of Commons to desist from farther question of receiving the King's Messages by their Speaker, and from the body of the Council, as well as from the King's person, in the Parliament 7 Jacobi' [1609], in the First Part of the Resuscitatio; An Argument of Sir Francis Bacon, the King's Solicitor, in the Lower House of Parliament, proving the King's Right of Impositions on Merchandises Imported and Exported' [must have been delivered in 1610, but evidently imperfect], in Stephens's Second Collection; 'A Brief Speech in the end of the Session of Parliament 7 Jacobi [1609], persuading some supply to be given to his Majesty, which seemed then to stand upon doubtful terms, and passed upon this Speech,' in the First Part of the Resuscitatio; A Certificate to the Lords of the Council, upon information given touching the Scarcity of Silver at the Mint, and reference to the two Chancellors and the King's Solicitor' [between A.D. 1607 and 1612], in Stephens's Second Collection; A Speech delivered by the King's Attorney, Sir Francis Bacon, in the Lower House, when the House was in great heat, and much troubled about the Undertakers; which were thought to be some able and forward gentlemen, who, to ingratiate themselves with the King, were said to have undertaken that the King's business should pass in that House as his Majesty could wish; in the Parliament 12 Jacobi' [1614], in the First Part of the Resus

citatio; His Lordship's Speeches in the Parliament, being Lord Chancellor, to the Speaker's Excuse, and to the Speaker's Oration' [1621], in the First Part of the Resuscitatio.

Most of these Speeches are strongly marked with the impression of Bacon's peculiar intellect, and there is scarcely one of them that does not contain something interesting or striking; but the limits to which we are confined make any further account of them impossible in the present work.

Nor with regard to Bacon's LETTERS can we do more than merely enumerate the several published collections of them in the order of their appearance. All Bacon's Letters that have yet seen the light have been originally given, we believe, in the following publications:-1. Cabala, sive Scrinia Sacra,' Part I., 4to. Lon. 1654; 2. The Same, Part II., 4to. Lon. 1654; 3. Resuscitatio,' Part I., fol. Lon. 1657; 4. A Collection of Letters made by Sir Tobie Mathews, Knt.,' 8vo. Lon. 1660; 5. Cabala,' Second Edition, fol. Lon. 1663; 6. Resuscitatio,' Part II., fol. Lon. 1670 and 1671; 7. Baconiana,' 8vo. Lon. 1679; 8. Cabala,' Third Edition, folio. Lon. 1691; 9. Stephens's First Collection, 4to. Lon. 1702; 10. Stephens's Second Collection, 4to. Lon. 1734; 11. Letters, Speeches, Charges, Advices, &c., of Francis Bacon, Lord Viscount St. Alban, Lord Chancellor of England; by Thomas Birch, D.D.,' 8vo. Lon. 1763. The Letters that have been collected from these various sources may amount to somewhere about seven hundred in all; but many others still remain in manuscript. Bacon's Letters are all deserving of preservation, either for the worth of the matter in them on its own account, or for the illustration they throw upon his other writings, upon the character of his mind, upon the history of his life, or upon that of his age; and we have reason to believe that the world may ere long expect an edition of all of them that can now be recovered, from a gentleman in the highest degree qualified to do justice to the task he has undertaken. That publication,

we have no doubt, will be recognised when it appears as by far the most important contribution that has yet been made to the biography of Bacon; while it will also furnish an example, the first we have yet had, of the manner in which his writings ought to be edited.

Bacon left no descendants. "Children," says his chaplain Rawley," he had none; which, though they be the means to perpetuate our names after our deaths, yet he had other issues to perpetuate his name, the issues of his brain; in which he was ever happy and admired, as Jupiter was in the production of Pallas. Neither did the want of children detract from the good usage of his consort during the intermarriage, whom he prosecuted with much conjugal love and respect, with many rich gifts and endowments, besides a robe of honour which he invested her withal, which she wore unto her dying day, being twenty years and more after his death." In the Latin this last statement is-" Addita etiam trabea honoraria maritali, quam viginti plus annos post obitum ejus gestavit; totidem enim annis honoratissimo marito superstes fuit." The phraseology is somewhat ambiguous; but what the worthy chaplain designates the robe of honour with which Bacon invested his wife, and which he adds she wore to her dying day, must be, we suppose, the rank of a peeress to which she was raised by her marriage. It deserves to be noticed that Rawley, in this sketch which he gives of the life of his illustrious patron, passes over what is called his fall without so much as an allusion to anything of the kind having ever happened; evincing much more delicacy and sensibility upon that point than Bacon himself. And it is remarkable that Bayle, writing nearly a century after it occurred, had not with all his inquisitiveness heard of the catastrophe that terminated the political career of the “Great Lord Chancellor of Learning as well as of Law;"* so

*Who was the original author of this often-repeated expression? In a preface of considerable length, prefixed to a little volume entitled 'The Felicity of Queen Elizabeth and her Times, with other Things, by the Right Honourable Francis Lord Bacon, Viscount St. Alban,' 12mo, Lon.,

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completely, out of his own country, had his philosophical renown filled the ears of men to the exclusion of all other speech respecting him. On the subject of Bacon's relations with his wife Rawley would seem to have practised something of the same affectionate and reverential reticence as on that of his delinquencies as a politician. At least it would appear from his will that the conjugal love and respect with which he prosecuted his consort during their intermarriage must have received some very decided shock before he left the world. In the beginning of the will he heaps devises and legacies upon his loving wife,"- "all which," he says, characteristically, "I here set down, not because I think it too much, but because others may not think it less than it is;" but in the end we are suddenly startled by the following emphatic intimation of a change of mind:-" Whatsoever I have given, granted, confirmed, or appointed to my wife in the former part of this my will, I do now, for just and great causes, utterly revoke and make void, and leave her to her right only.' It has not been generally noticed that Lady Bacon was a sister of the first wife of Mervin, fourteenth Baron Audley and second Earl of Castlehaven, who suffered death as a felon in 1631, and whose story makes one of the darkest and most revolting pages of our criminal history. They were both daughters and co-heirs of Benedict Barnham, Esq., Alderman of London.

The most memorable bequest in this last will of Bacon's is the following:-" For my name and memory I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next ages." A modest yet withal lofty appeal; and one which has not been made in vain.

1651, we find it quoted from 'The Preface to Lessius Hygiasticon; that is, the Hygiasticon, seu vera ratio valetudinis Bona Vitæ,' of Leonard Lessius, the learned Jesuit and professor of theology at Louvaine, who was a contemporary of Bacon's, having died, at the age of sixty nine, in 1623.