Page:Essays of Francis Bacon 1908 Scott.djvu/16

Rh Henry the Seventh. Mr. Spedding's note on the essay, Of Nature in Men, tells us that Bacon's use of the verb 'lay' where 'lie' would now be employed may mean that the verbs 'lie' and 'lay' had not become differentiated in his time. All information like this about a classical English author is invaluable to the student, for it encourages accuracy in reading a text and reverence in handling it.

Mr. Spedding translated Bacon's frequent quotations from Latin authors and put his English rendering into the body of the text, in brackets. To make the page clear and pleasing to the eye, I have omitted all the bracketed English translations of Mr. Spedding. My own translations to replace them have been put in the footnotes. In making new translations from the Latin, I have endeavored to bear in mind three things,—to keep near the Latin sense, to use simple idiomatic English, and to catch the Latin spirit, and indeed Bacon's spirit, by being at least brief. It is not possible to read any work of Bacon and know just what he is saying without a reading knowledge of Latin, for he is likely to quote Tacitus or Cicero or Seneca on almost every page. I am of those who deplore the displacement of Latin literature in our schools and colleges by vaguer subjects requiring less mental exertion. I have therefore made no effort either to minimize or to popularize Tacitus and Cicero. They are of the elect. They become more elect, more the aristocrats of letters, as an irrepressible and levelling democracy passes them by on its primrose path to an educational ideal of "small Rh