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ADVERTISEMENT.

THIS little work was originally published in 1846-7. It made no pretensions to be more than such a compendious account as might serve for an introduction to the study of the writings of Bacon, or might suffice for ordinary readers who should desire not to remain altogether unacquainted with what bears so illustrious a name,-inducing some of them also, perhaps, to seek a more thorough knowledge for themselves who might not otherwise have thought of doing so.

In the present edition a few typographical errata have been corrected; but the substance of the book has not been altered. Nothing, accordingly, has been drawn from any one of the three remarkable additions to the library of Baconian literature which have been made within the last few years in Germany, France, and our own country, by Dr. Kuno Fischer's Francis Bacon of Verulam (translated by Mr. Oxenford, London, 1857); M. Rémusat's Life and Times of Bacon, Paris, 1857; and, by far most important of all, the new London edition of the Works of Francis Bacon, by Mr. Spedding, Mr. Heath, and the late lamented Mr. Ellis, of which seven volumes have already appeared, and which when completed will raise Bacon from having been the worse edited, if he can be said to have ever before been, properly speaking, edited at all, of our

great writers to be the most learnedly, carefully, and ably edited of them all.

I had, however, somehow, in my examination of and references to Mr. Montagu's edition, accidentally overlooked altogether, as it would appear, one of the sixteen volumes of which it consists, namely the 15th, containing translations of certain of the Latin treatises. I have now, therefore, to state, that the Preface to the Phænomena Universi (noticed by me at p. 455), is translated there at p. 122; the Historia Densi et Rari (p. 470), at p. 130, by A. T. R.; the Historia de Sono et Auditu (p. 497), at p. 225; the Inquisitio de Versionibus (p. 498), at p. 215, by A. Blair, Esq.; the Topica de Luce (ibid.), at p. 82; the Temporis Partus Masculus, or Maximus, (p. 499), at p. 223, by W. G. G.; the De Fluxu et Refluxu Maris (p. 500), at p. 192, by the same; the Cogitata et Visa (p. 591 and 593), at p. 16. by G. W.; the Descriptio Globi Intellectualis (p. 600), at p. 150, by W. G. G.; the Thema Coeli (pp. 601 and 602), at p. 1; the De Principiis (p. 603), at p. 44, by A. T. R.; the Partis Instaurationis Secundæ Delineatio (p. 604), as far as in Gruter, at p. 106, by W. G. G.; the Aphorismi de Auxiliis Mentis (ibid.), at p. 87, by J. A. C.; the De Interpretatione Naturæ Sententiæ (ibid.), at p. 89, and again, in part differently, at p. 223, by W. G. G.; lastly, the De Interpretatione Naturae Prooemium (p. 611), at p. 103, by J. A. C., and again at p. 220, somewhat strangely, in the very same words, by W. G. G.

QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST ;

March, 1860.

G. L. C.

BACON;

HIS WRITINGS, AND HIS PHILOSOPHY.

INTRODUCTION.

BACON has himself said, that, although some books may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others, that should be only in the less important arguments and the meaner sort of books; "else," he adds, "distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things." This is in his essay entitled 'Of Studies;' and undoubtedly the works of a great writer can only be properly studied in their original form.

But abridgements, compendiums, analyses, even of the works of the greatest writers, may still serve important purposes. If properly executed, even the student of the original works may find them of use both as guides and as remembrancers. A good compendium should be at least the best index and synopsis. The more extensive the original book, or books, the more is such a compendious analysis wanted, not to supersede or be a substitute for the original, but to accompany it as an introduction and instrument of ready reference. It is like a map of a country through which one has travelled, or is about to travel; or rather it is like what is called the keymap prefixed to a voluminous atlas, by which all the other maps are brought together into one view, and their consultation facilitated.

To the generality of readers, again, a comprehensive survey in small compass of an extensive and various mass of writings is calculated to be more than such a mere convenient table of contents or ground-plan. In the same Essay Bacon has said, "Some books are to be tasted,`

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