Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/115

ham, Trinity College, Cambridge, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford.—The present was gratefully acknowledged by the different patrons to whom it was presented, and by all the learning of England.

Fifty years after its publication it was included at Rome in the list "Librorum Prohibitorum," in which list it is now included in Spain.

The vanity of these attempts to resist the progress of knowledge might, it should seem, by this time be understood even at the Vatican.

How beautifully are the consequences of this intolerance thus stated by Fuller: "Hitherto the corpse of John Wickliffe had quietly slept in his grave about forty-one years after his death, till his body was reduced to bones and his bones almost to dust. For though the earth in the chancel of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, where he was interred, hath not so quick a digestion with the earth of Aceldama, to consume flesh in twenty-four hours, yet such the appetite thereof, and all other English graves, to leave small reversions of a body after so many years. But now such the spleen of the council of Constance, as they not only cursed his memory as dying an obstinate heretic, but ordered that his bones (with this charitable caution, if it may be discerned from the bodies of other faithful people) be taken out of the ground, and thrown far off from any Christian burial. In obedience hereunto, Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, Diocesan of Lutterworth, sent his officers, vultures with a quick sight scent at a dead carcass, to ungrave him. Accordingly to Lutterworth they come; summer, commissary, official, chancellor, proctors, doctors, and their servants, so that the remnant of the body would not hold out a bone amongst so many hands, take what was left out of the grave, and burnt them to ashes, and cast them into Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by. Thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."

If Bacon had completed his intended work upon "Sympathy and Antipathy," the constant antipathy of ignorance to intellect, originating sometimes in the painful feeling of inferiority, sometimes in the fear of worldly injury, but always in the influence of some passion more powerful than the love of truth, would not have escaped his notice.

In this year he also published his History of Life and Death, which, of all his works, is one of the most extraordinary, both for the extent of his views, and the minute accuracy with which each part is investigated. It is addressed, not, to use his own expression, "to the Adonises of literature, but to Hercules's followers; that is, the more severe and laborious inquirers into truth."

Upon his entrance, in the Advancement of Learning, on the science of human nature, he says, "The knowledge of man, although only a portion of knowledge in the continent of nature, is to man the end of all knowledge:" and, in furtherance of this opinion, he explains that the object of education ought to be knowledge and improvement of the body and the mind.

Of the importance of knowledge of the body, that, "while sojourning in this wilderness, and travelling to the land of promise, our vestments should be preserved," he is incessant in his observations. He divides the subject into

princes is commonly more sad and besieged with melancholy; but of knowledge there is no satiety, but vicissitude, perpetually and interchangeably returning of fruition and appetite; so that the good of this delight must needs be simpler, without accident or fallacy."

In the year 1632 a translation into French was published in Paris. The following Is a copy of the title page: "Neve Livres de la Dignité et de l'Accroissement des Sciences, composez par Francois Bacon, Baron de Verulam et Vicomte de Saint Aubain, et traduits de Latin en Francois par le Sieur de Golefer, Conseiller et Historiographe du Roy. A Paris, chez Jaques Dugast, rue Sainct Jean de Beauvais, a l'Olivier de Robert Estienne et en sa boutique au bas de la rue de la Harpe. m.dc.xxxii. avec privilege du Roy."—Of this edition Archbishop Tenison says, "This work hath been also translated into French, upon the motion of the Marquis Fiat; but in it there are many things wholly omitted, many things perfectly mistaken, and some things, especially such as relate to religion, wilfully perverted. Insomuch that, in one place, he makes his lordship to magnify the Legend: a book sure of little credit with him, when he thus began one of his essays, I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind." I have a copy of this edition.




A letter of the Lord Bacon's, in French, to the Marquess Fiat, relating to his Essays.


Monsieur l'Ambassadeur mon File,—Voyant que vostre excellence faict et trait mariages, non seulement entre les princes d' Angletere et de France, mais aussi entre les langues (puis que faictes traduire non liure de l'Advancement des Sciences en Francois) i' ai bien voulu vous envoyer, &c.
There is a translation into French in the edition of Lord Bacon's works, published in the eighth year of the French Republic. The following is the title page of this edition: "Œuvres de Franois Bacon, Chancelier d' Angletaire; traduites par Ant. La Salle; avec des notes critiques, historiques et litteraires. Tome premier. A Dijon, de l'Imprimerie de L. N. Frantin, an 8 de la Republique Française."



De Augmentis—Latin.

1623	.....	Folio	...	Haviland	....	London	....	1st edit.
1624	.....	4to	...	Mettayer	....	Paris	....	2d edit.
1633	.....	Folio	...	Haviland	....	London	....	3d edit.
1645	.....	12mo	...	Moirardum	....	Dutch	....	4th edit.
1652	.....	12mo	...	Wynyard	....	Dutch	....	5th edit.
1662	.....	12mo	...	Ravestein	....	Dutch	....	6th edit.
1765	.....	8vo	...	Gerard	....	Venice	....	7th edit.
1779	.....	8vo	...	Stahel	....	Wirceburgi	....	8th edit. 2 vols.
1829	.....	8vo	...	Riegelli	....	Nuremberg	....	9th edit. 2 vols.





Translations.

1640	.....	English	.	G. Wats	....	Oxford	....	Folio.
1674	.....	English	...	Mettayer	....	London	....	Folio
1632	.....	French	...	Dugast	....	Paris	....	4to.
8th year Rep	.....	French	...	Frantin	....	Dijon	....	8vo.