SECTION V.

THE HISTORICAL WORKS.

BACON has himself in his Latin Letter to Father Fulgentio, written towards the close of his life, classed together his Moral and his Historical works; and they come properly under the same division. They are distinguished by the same general character from his other writings: from his Philosophical or Scientific works on the one hand; from his Letters, and other remains chiefly referring to the events of his own life or of his own time, on the other. Under these three heads all his writings may be conveniently enough arranged. His Moral and Theological works are full of narrative or historical passages; his Historical works of moral disquisition and reflection. History, in truth, is only ethical and economical speculation in a narrative form, the actual exemplification of the principles and precepts of moral wisdom.

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Bacon's principal and indeed only considerable historical work is his History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh,' first published, in a folio volume, in 1622. This," says Tenison, was the first book which he composed after his retirement from an active life." We have already had occasion to quote his Letter to the King of the 21st of April, 1621, announcing his intention of writing it.

In another Letter to the King, dated the 8th of October, he seems to speak of it as already finished: "I durst not," he says, “have presumed to entreat your majesty to look over the book, and correct it, or at least to signify what you would have amended; but, since you are pleased to send for the book, I will hope for it." It had, as we have seen from the Letter of Sir Thomas Meautys, been perused by his majesty in manuscript

before the 7th of January of the following year. The author presents printed copies of his work to the king and Buckingham in Letters dated from Gorhambury the 20th of March, 1622.* In a Letter to Meautys, dated the 21st, he expressly speaks of it as having been three months in the king's hands. When it appeared in print, it was introduced by a short Dedication, without date, to the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I.). The first translation of it appears to have been that into French, which was published in 8vo. at Paris in 1627. The Latin version was first published at London in 1638, in folio, in the collection of pieces, entitled 'Francisci Baconi, Baronis, &c., Moralium et Civilium Tomus-ab ipso honoratissimo auctore, praeterquam in paucis, Latinitate donatus; Cura et fide Guilielmi Rawley, &c.' to which we have already had occasion to refer. This title page would seem to entitle us to conclude that the History of Henry the Seventh had been turned into Latiu by Bacon himself; since, from its extent, it certainly cannot well come under the description of the few things in the volume excepted from the general statement that he had been his own translator. Rawley also, in his Life of Bacon, expressly mentions the transla tion into Latin of this History as among "the fruits and productions of his last five years." And in the Dedication of the last edition of the Essays to the Duke of Buckingham, as we have seen, Bacon himself speaks of

*Mr. Montagu, in his bibliographical Preface to the History (Works, vol. iii.), throws the whole statement into confusion by making it appear as if the letter of October, 1621, had been writen subsequently to those of March, 1622 (or 1621, according to the then mode of reckoning). Throughout his edition, as far as we have observed, Mr. Montagu's attention is never by any chance once awakened to the circumstance that in Bacon's time the year did not end till the 24th of March; and the quantity of perplexity, contradiction, and uniutelligibility occasioned in every part of his labours by this single inadvertency is past all describing. In the present instance, the substance of the Letters ought to have prevented their misarrangement.

having now also translated his History into Latin. In the first instance, however, as would appear from his Letter to Mr. Toby Matthew, quoted in a preceding section, he had contemplated getting the History as well as the Essays translated by another hand.

One biographer of Bacon after another has spoken of the History of Henry the Seventh as a performance in which Bacon's ability and eloquence almost deserted him, or at least as a work markedly and indisputably inferior to everything else of any considerable pretension that he has left us. No race of writers so repeat and parrot one another as the common tribe of biographers-so take both facts and opinions upon trust. And, in the case especially of a voluminous writer, it is from his biographers and not from himself that the popular notion of him is almost exclusively derived. The vulgar judgment upon Bacon's Henry the Seventh, we may with perfect safety affirm, can only have come out of the work not having been read by the generality of those who have written about it. No probable dulness or insensibility in the critic could otherwise have either originated or taken up so false a notion. It is simply a fact, which will not bear disputing, that this History of Bacon's is, in the first place, one of the most characteristic of his works, and one which he has evidently executed most con amore and with his whole heart and soul in what he was about; and, secondly, that it is one of the most animated, graphic, and altogether felicitous historical pieces in the language. The list of our historical works of eminent merit, indeed, is so short that it would not be much to ask, what else have we of the same kind that is better or so good; but we may observe that, when it first appeared, the best judges could find only one other work, Camden's Latin Annals of the Reign of Elizabeth, to compare with it; and nobody who knows the two will now admit that respectable but not brilliant performance to be even an example of the same kind of writing. If Bacon's Henry the Seventh had any worthy precursor it was Sir Thomas More's Richard the Third, of which it is in fact the continuation. But that is merely a fragment. And, after

VOL. I.

I

men, and that the Staffords were in arms in Worcestershire, and had made their approaches to the city of Worcester to assail it. The king, as a prince of great and profound judgment, was not much moved with it; for that he thought it was but a rag or remnant of Bosworth field, and had nothing in it of the But he was more doubtful main party of the House of York. of the raising of forces to resist the rebels, than of the resistance itself; for that he was in a core of people whose affections he suspected. But the action enduring no delay, he did speedily levy and send against the Lord Lovel to the number of three thousand men, ill armed but well assured, being taken some few out of his own train, and the rest out of the tenants and followers of such as were safe to be trusted, under the conduct of the Duke of Bedford. And as his manner was to send his pardons rather before the sword than after, he gave permission to the duke to proclaim pardon to all that would come in; which the duke upon his approach to Lord Lovel's camp did perform. And it fell out as the king expected; the heralds were the great ordnance. For the Lord Lovel, upon proclamation of pardon, mistrusting his men, fled into Lancashire and lurking for a time with Sir Thomas Broughton, after sailed over into Flanders to the Lady Margaret; and his men, forsaken of their captain, did presently submit themselves to the duke. The Staffords likewise, and their forces, hearing what had hap pened to the Lord Lovel, in whose success their chief trust was, despaired and dispersed; the two brothers taking sanctuary at Colnham, a village near Abingdon. Which place upon view of their privilege in the King's Bench, being judged no sufficient sanctuary for traitors, Humphrey was executed at Tyburn; and Thomas, as being led by his elder brother, was pardoned. So this rebellion proved but a blast, and the king having by this journey purged a little the dregs and leaven of the northern people that were before in no good affection towards him, returned to London.

Then follows the story of the first Pretender, Lambert Simnell :

There followed this year, being the second of the king's reign, a strange accident of state, whereof the relations which we have are so naked, as they leave it scarce credible; not for the nature of it, for it hath fallen out often, but for the manner and circumstance of it, especially in the beginnings. Therefore we shall make our judgment upon the things themselves,

as they give light one to another, and as we can dig truth out of the mine. The king was green in his estate; and contrary to his own opinion and desert both, was not without much hatred throughout the realm. The root of all was the discountenancing of the House of York; which the general body of the realm still affected. This did alienate the hearts of the subjects from him daily more and more, especially when they saw, that after his marriage, and after a son born, the king did, nevertheless, not so much as proceed to the coronation of the queen, not vouchsafing her the honour of a matrimonial crown; for the coronation of her was not till almost two years after, when danger had taught him what to do. But much more when it was spread abroad, whether by error or the cunning of malcontents, that the king had a purpose to put to death Edward Plantagenet closely in the Tower: whose case was so nearly paralleled with that of Edward the Fourth's children, in respect of the blood, like age, and the very place of the Tower, as it did refresh and reflect upon the king a most odious resemblance, as if he would be another King Richard. And all this time it was still whispered everywhere, that at least one of the children of Edward the Fourth was living: which bruit was cunningly fomented by such as desired innovation. Neither was the king's nature and customs greatly fit to disperse these mists, but contrariwise, he had a fashion rather to create doubts than assurance. Thus was fuel prepared for the spark: the spark, that afterwards kindled such a fire and combustion, was at the first contemptible.

There was a subtle priest called Richard Simon, that lived in Oxford, and had to his pupil a baker's son, named Lambert Simnell, of the age of some fifteen years, a comely youth, and well favoured, not without some extraordinary diguity and grace of aspect. It came into this priest's fancy, hearing what men talked, and in hope to raise himself to some great bishopric, to cause this lad to counterfeit and personate the second son of Edward the Fourth, supposed to be murdered; and afterwards, for he had changed his intention in the manage, the Lord Edward Plantagenet, then prisoner in the Tower, and accordingly to frame him and instruct him in the part he was to play. This is that which, as was touched before, seemeth scarcely credible; not that a false person should be assumed to gain a kingdom, for it hath been seen in ancient and late times; nor that it should come into the mind of such an abject fellow to enterprise so great a matter; for high conceits do sometimes come streaming into the imaginations of base