Page:Essays of Francis Bacon 1908 Scott.djvu/18

Rh Bacon quotes the character in the essay, Of Great Place, in six Latin words; in the Advancement of Learning the six words are reduced to five. In citations from the Bible, Bacon frequently has the Vulgate in mind, quoting it freely just as he quotes Tacitus and Cicero. I have examined all these quotations, and in a number of cases my notes point out variations between the Latin of the Vulgate and Bacon's rendering of it.

In some cases, in order to draw attention to an English word derived directly from a Latin one, I have purposely made a Latinized translation in preference to a more idiomatic one which would have satisfied my own language sense better. One of these premeditated Latinized translations is that from Lucan's Pharsalia in the essay, Of Seditions and Troubles.

Words whose meaning has changed since Bacon's time and obsolete words are defined once only, unless the same word occurs in more senses than one. In defining words, I have followed the authority of the New English Dictionary as far as that work is published, which is at this time, with some breaks, down to the word 'reserve.' Where the Oxford dictionary is not yet available, I have used the Century Dictionary. The words that I have had to define most frequently have been the prepositions 'to,' 'in,' 'of,' 'by,' 'upon,' 'after,' and the like. As one studies the history of these little words, they appear to act the part of sentinels in the expansion of English. Behind them lies the great army of nouns, forever assuming fresh Rh