I hope of more famous memory than before, King Henry VII. to give your majesty thanks for me; which work, most humbly kissing your majesty's hands, I do present. And because in the beginning of my trouble, when in the midst of the tempest I had a kenning of the harbour, which I hope now, by your majesty's favour, I am entering into, I made a tender to your majesty of two works,- a History of England, and a Digest of your Laws; as I have by a figure of pars pro toto performed the one, so I have herewith sent your majesty, by way of an epistle, a new offer of the other; but my desire is farther, if it stand with your majesty's good pleasure, since now my study is my exchange, and my pen my factor for the use of my talent, that your majesty, who is a great master in these things, would be pleased to appoint me some task to write, and that I should take for an oracle. And because my Instauration, which I esteem my great work, and do still go on with in silence, was dedicated to your ma jesty, and this History of King Henry VII. to your lively and excellent image the Prince, if now your majesty will be pleased to give me a theme to dedicate to my lord of Buckingham, whom I have so much reason to honour, I should with more alacrity embrace your majesty's direction than my own choice.'* When Bacon had completed the manuscript of his History of Henry VII., he put it into the hands of sir John Danvers, an old and faithful friend, desiring his opinion of it: Your lordship,' said sir John, 'knows that I am no scholar.' 'No matter,' replied Bacon, I know what a scholar can say; I would know what you can say.' Sir John read it, and gave his opinion as to what he misliked, which his lordship acknowledged to be true, and mended it accordingly, at the same time remarking to his friend,'Why a scholar would never have told me *Bacon's Works, vol. 13, p. 36. this.'* During the period of his retirement (the last five years of his life,) he assiduously pursued his literary and philosophical labours, composing, in addition to the History of Henry VII., not less than eight works on subjects connected with natural philosophy, a treatise on the war with Spain, together with several other pieces, including a translation of certain Psalms into English verse, styling them, in his dedication to his very good friend, Mr. George Herbert, a poor exercise of his sickness.'† An anecdote of this period of Bacon's life, preserved in the Baconiana by Abp. Tennison, who had it from Dr. Rawley, is too interesting an illustration of lord Bacon's * Aubrey, vol. 2, p. 222. Aubrey received this relation from sir John Danvers himself. † Bacon's Works, vol. 7, p. 98. For a list of lord Bacon's writings, see Mallet's Life, p. 169, and Mr. Montagu's Prefaces to his edition of Bacon's Works. strength of mind—a quality which some deny that he possessed-to be omitted. One day his lordship was dictating to Dr. Rawley some of his experiments in the Sylva. The same day he had sent a friend to court, to receive for him a final answer, touching the effect of a grant which had been made him by king James. He had hitherto only hope of it, and hope deferred, and he was desirous to know the event of the matter, and to be freed, one way or other, from the suspense of his thoughts. His friend returning, told him plainly, that henceforth he must despair of that grant, how much soever his fortunes needed it. Be it so,' said his lordship, and then he dismissed his friend very cheerfully, with thankful acknowledgments for his services. His friend being gone, he came straightway to Dr. Rawley, and said to him, 'Well, sir, yon business won't go on; let us go on with this in our power;' and then he dictated to him afresh for some hours, without the least hesitancy of speech or discernible interruption of thought. It was, probably, about this time that Bacon composed the following verses, which, for condensed thought and pointed brevity of expression, are, perhaps, unrivalled. The melancholy representation which he gives of human life doubtless borrowed some of its darker shades from his own unhappy career. These verses, (as we learn from Aubrey,*) were first printed in Farnaby's Arbonoyia, together with a Greek version in rhyme by that once celebrated man, who was, says Anthony Wood, the chief grammarian, rhetorician, poet, Latinist, and Grecian of his time.' We quote from the edition of 1650, which bears the following title:Η τῆς ἀνθολογίας Ανθολογία- Florilegium Epigrammatum Græcorum, eorumque Latino versu à variis redditorum. * Vol. 2, p. 224. A copy was found among the papers of sir H. Wotton, and printed, with some slight variations, in his Reliquia: |