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House;'* and, on the twenty-fourth of April, this letter was communicated to the Lords, by the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles the First-a circumstance which confirms Bushell's statement, that this course was pursued by command of the King. We are unwilling to omit any part of so beautiful and interesting a letter, which, (says an American writer who has ably vindicated lord Bacon's character,) deserves to be read by all who would make themselves acquainted with the stores of eloquence contained in our language.

*Bushell's Extract of his Abridgment of the Lord Chancellor Bacon's Philosophical Theory in Mineral Prosecutions,-Post-script, pp. 19, 20. This tract, which is very scarce, was published in 1660. There is a copy, bound up with several other tracts by Bushell and others on the subject of Minerals, in the library of the British Museum. An account of Mr. Bushell is given in Wood's Ath. Oxon., vol. 3, p. 1007, Bliss's edit., and by Aubrey, vol. 2, p. 260. He was famous for his mining speculations, and seems to have been an ingenious man; but, sharing the fate of most projectors, died in indigence..

+ North American Review, (N. S.) for April, 1823, S

'To the Right Honourable the Lords of Parliament, in the Upper House assembled.

The humble Submission and Supplication of the Lord Chancellor.

'It may please your lordships, I shall humbly crave at your lordships' hands a benign interpretation of that which I shall now write; for words that come from wasted spirits, and an oppressed mind, are more safe in being deposited in a noble construction, than in being circled with any reserved caution.

'This being moved, and, as I hope, obtained, in the nature of a protection to all

art. xx. 'There is a kind of fraternity,' says Bacon, 'between great men that are, and those that have been, being but the several tenses of one verb;' and as time alters not this relation, neither, we would add, does space; and the English Philosopher is reverenced, not only in America, but in all civilized countries, by the wise and good.

that I shall say, I shall now make into the rest of that wherewith I shall at this time trouble your lordships a very strange entrance. For, in the midst of a state of as great affliction as I think a mortal man can endure (honour being above life,) I shall begin with the professing of gladness in some things.

The first is, that hereafter the greatness of a judge or magistrate shall be no sanctuary or protection of guiltiness, which (in few words) is the beginning of a golden world. The next, that, after this example, it is like that judges will fly from any thing that is in the likeness of corruption (though it were at a great distance) as from a serpent; which tendeth to the purging of the courts of justice, and the reducing them to their true honour and splendour. And in these two points, God is my witness, that, though it be my fortune to be the anvil upon which these good effects are beaten and wrought, I take no small comfort.

'But, to pass from the motions of my heart whereof God is only judge, to the merits of my cause, whereof your lordships are judges, under God and his lieutenant, I do understand there hath been heretofore expected from me some justification; and therefore I have chosen one only justification instead of all other, out of the justifications of Joh. For, after the clear submission and confession which I shall now make unto your lordships, I hope I may say and justify with Job, in these words: I have not hid my sin as did Adam, nor concealed my faults in my bosom. This is the only justification which I will use.

'It resteth therefore, that without figleaves, I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge that, having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the house, but enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter sufficient and full, both to move me to desert the defence, and to move your lordships to condemn and cen

sure me.

Neither will I trouble your lord

ships by singling those particulars, which I think may fall off,

"Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una?"

Neither will I prompt your lordships to observe upon the proofs, where they come not home, or the scruples touching the credits of the witnesses; neither will I represent unto your lordships how far a defence might, in divers things, extenuate the offence in respect of the time or manner of the gift, or the like circumstances; but only leave these things to spring out of your own noble thoughts and observations of the evidence and examinations themselves, and charitably to wind about the particulars of the charge here and there, as God shall put into your minds, and so submit myself wholly to your piety and grace.

"And now that I have spoken to your lordships as judges, I shall say a few words unto you as peers and prelates, humbly commend

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