Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/364

 Bacon many corrections in the history of the events, only serve to confirm and illustrate the truth of its interpretation of them.'

Amongst the smaller historical remains of Bacon are the opening paragraph of a projected 'History of Henry the Eighth,' a piece entitled 'In felicem Memoriam Elizabethæ,' a memorial of Henry Prince of Wales, the eldest son of James, who died prematurely in 1612, and a small fragment in English, entitled 'The Beginning of the History of Great Britain,' giving an account of the accession of James I to the crown of England. Mr. Spedding says of the last: 'As an account of the temper of men's minds at James's entrance, it is complete; and in my judgment one of the best things in its kind that Bacon ever wrote.'

Bacon's religious works, though they contain some of his finest sentiments and are mostly written in his best style, might be contained in a very thin volume. The largest of them is the 'Meditationes Sacræ,' first published, in the same volume with the 'Essays' and the 'Colours of Good and Evil,' in 1597. The other genuine works of this class are 'A Confession of Faith,' first published in the 'Remains' in 1648, but written before (how long before we cannot determine) the summer of 1603; a 'Translation of certain Psalms into English Verse,' composed during his fit of sickness in 1624, which were dedicated to 'his very good friend Mr. George Herbert,' and published in 1625; and three prayers, 'The Student's Prayer,' 'The Writer's Prayer,' and a third composed, in the midst of his troubles, in the spring of 1621. Of this last prayer Addison (in the Tatler, No. 267) says that 'for the elevation of thought and greatness of expression, it seems rather the devotion of an angel than of a man.' A fourth prayer, described in the 'Remains' as 'made and used by the late lord chancellor,' but not mentioned by either Rawley or Tenison, is of doubtful authenticity. Lastly, a piece entitled 'The Characters of a Believing Christian in Paradoxes and Seeming Contradictions,' which was also published in the 'Remains,' and has frequently been quoted as Bacon's under the short title of 'Christian Paradoxes,' has been shown by Dr. Grosart to have been written by another hand.

A collection of all the professional works which still possess any importance has been brought together and annotated by Mr. D. D. Heath in the seventh volume of the last edition of Bacon's works. The largest and most important of these are the treatises entitled 'Maxims of the Law,' and the 'Reading on the Statute of Uses.' The 'Maxims of the Law' were Bacon's contribution, 'a sheaf and cluster of fruit,' towards that digest of the laws of England which became at an early period of his life a favourite idea with him, and of which he never wholly lost sight.

It may be convenient if I here notice the various collections of Bacon's posthumous works, which appeared from time to time during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1627, the year after his death, his chaplain. Dr. Rawley, brought out the 'Sylva Sylvarum,' with the 'New Atlantis' appended. All Bacon's more important works had thus been published in 1627. But amongst his papers were found a number of speeches, letters, beginnings or first drafts of treatises, heads of advice, memoranda, &c., which served several successive editors for collections of miscellanies. The first of these collections was that contained in the small volume, published by Dr. Rawley in 1629, under the title of 'Certain Miscellany Works.' In 1638 Dr. Rawley published the Latin volume entitled 'Opera Moralia et Civilia.' The next volume of collections was published anonymously in 1648, and was entitled 'The Remains of Francis, Lord Verulam, &c., being essays and several letters to several great personages, and other pieces of various and high concernment not heretofore published.' The authenticity of any document contained in this collection requires to be supported by independent testimony.

In 1653 appeared a far more important volume, that published in an elegant duodecimo at Amsterdam by Isaac Gruter, and entitled 'Francisci Baconi de Verulamio Scripta in Naturali et Universali Philosophia.' Another important collection of pieces was issued in 1657. This was a miscellaneous collection, edited by Rawley, under the title of 'Resuscitatio, or Bringing into publick Light several Pieces of the Works, Civil, Historical, Philosophical, and Theological, hitherto sleeping, of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon,' &c. To it is prefixed a 'Life of the Honourable Author,' since frequently reprinted. New editions of the 'Resuscitatio' were brought out in 1661 and 1671 respectively, both containing new matter, but Dr. Rawley, who died in 1667, is only responsible for the second edition. The 'Resuscitatio' is a collection of English pieces or translations only, but in 1658 Rawley redeemed his promise of bringing out a small collection of Latin works, so as not 'to leave to a future hand anything of moment and communicable to the public' This collection is entitled 'Opuscula Varia Posthuma, Philosophica, Civilia, et Theologica, Francisci Baconi, &c.