Bacon speaks, when he says, in a letter to his friend Matthew, 'I can assure you, that, though many things of great hope decay with youth, (and multitude of civil businesses is wont to diminish the price, though not the delight, of contemplations,) yet the proceeding in that work doth gain with me upon my affection and desire, both by years and businesses; and therefore I hope, even by this, that it is well pleasing to God, from whom, and to whom, all good moves.'* Writing, in 1610, to the same friend, he tells him, 'My great work goeth forward, and, after my manner, I alter even where I add; so that nothing is finished till all be finished.' So assiduously did Bacon revise his Instauration, that, as we learn from Dr. Rawley, not fewer than twelve transcriptions

the bishop's reply, 'embracing the honour with all thankfulness, and the trust imposed upon him with all religion and devotion.'-Ib. 13, p. 42.

* Bacon's Works, vol. 12, p. 232.

+ Ib. 29.

had been made. Besides his own frequent revisions, he submitted detached parts of his work to the criticism of his friends, well knowing, (as he told the bishop of Ely, upon sending him the 'Cogitata et Visa,') that when our minds judge by reflection on ourselves, they are more subject to error. 'And though, for the matter itself,' he added, 'my judgment be in some things fixed, and not accessible by any man's judgment that goeth not my way, yet even in those things the admonition of a friend may make me express myself diversely.' *

* Bacon's Works, vol. 12, p. 91. 'I am forced,' he says, in the same letter, 'to respect as well my times as the matter; for with me it is thus, and I think with all men in my case, if I bind myself to an argument, it loadeth my mind, but if I rid my mind of the present cogitation, it is rather a recreation: this hath put me into these miscellanies, which I propose to suppress, if God give me leave to write a just and perfect volume of philosophy, which I go on with, though slowly. I send not your lordship too much, lest it may glut you. Now, let me tell you what my desire is. If your lordship be so good now as when you were the good

To sir Thomas Bodley he likewise sent the same tract, and also the Advancement of Learning; but the celebrated founder of the Bodleian Library, (who built an ark, said Bacon, to save learning from deluge,*) was, like his equally or more famous predecessor, Appellicon of Teos, whom Strabo characterized as a lover of books rather than a philosopher, φιλοβίβλος μαλλον η φιλοσοφος and he liked not the argument of the inductive philosophy. Playfully retorting upon his friend, 'If you be not of the lodgings chalked up,' said Bacon, "whereof I speak

dean of Westminster, my request to you is, that not by pricks, but by notes, you would mark unto me whatsoever shall seem unto yoù either not correct in the style, or harsh to credit and opinion, or inconvenient for the person of the writer, for no man can be judge and party. I would have come to your lordship, but that I am hastening to my house in the country, and so I commend your lordship to God's goodness.'

* Bacon's Works, vol. 12, p. 82.

† Strabo, xiii.

Bacon's Works, vol. 12, p. 91, or vol. 13, p. 62. See sir Thomas Bodley's elaborate letter to Bacon, on

in my preface, I am but to pass by your door; but if I had you but a fortnight at Gorhambury, I would make you tell me another tale, or else I would add a cogitation against libraries, and be revenged on you that way.'

Lord Bacon also presented the Instauration to his old friend, Matthew, who, in his affectionate writing touching that work, (it is thus that Bacon delicately characterizes his friend's letter,) warned him not to tread too closely on the heels of divines, lest they should endeavour to hinder the popularity

receiving the Advancement of Learning, vol. 10, p. 506, and vol. 12, p. 83. The following passage from the Novum Organum will explain the curious phrase, lodgings chalked up::—‘Dixit Borgia de expeditione Gallorum in Italiam, eos venisse cum cretâ in manibus ut diversoria notarent, non cum armis ut perrumperent; itidem et nostra ratio est, ut doctrina nostra animos idoneos et capaces subintret; confutationum enim nullus est usus, ubi de principiis et ipsis notionibus, atque etiam de formis demonstrationum dissentimus.'Bacon's Works, vol. 9, p. 196; and see post, p. 129.

of his book. This, as might be expected, called forth a characteristic reply. 'For

your caution,' said Bacon, 'for churchmen and church matters,-as for any impediment it might be to the applause and celebrity of my work, it moveth me not; but as it may hinder the fruit and good which may come of a quiet and calm passage to the good port to which it is bound, I hold it a just respect so as to fetch a fair wind I go not too far about; but troth is, I shall have no occasion to meet them in my way, except it be as they will needs confederate themselves with Aristotle, who, you know, is intemperately magnified with the schoolmen, and is also allied (as I take it) to the Jesuits by Faber, who was a companion of Loyola, and a great Aristotleian.' 'Myself,' he adds, 'am like the miller of Huntington, that was wont to pray for peace among the willows; for while the winds blew the wind-mills wrought, and the water-mill was less customed. So