ESSAYS. MORAL, ECONOMICAL, AND POLITICAL. BY FRANCIS BACON, BARON OF VERULAM, VISCOUNT ST. ALBAN, AND Stereotyped at the BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY T. BEDLINGTON, No. 31, Washington Street. PREFATORY EPISTLE. TO MR. ANTHONY BACON, HIS DEAR BROTHER. LOVING and beloved brother, I do now like some that have an orchard ill neighboured, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing. These fragments of my conceits were going to print: to labour the stay of them had been troublesome, and subject to interpretation; to let them pass had been to adventure the wrong they might receive by untrue copies, or by some garnishment which it might please any that should set them forth to bestow upon them: therefore I held it best discretion to publish them myself, as they passed long ago from my pen, without any further disgrace than the weakness of the author; and as I did ever hold, there might be as great a vanity in retiring and withdrawing men's conceits (except they be of some nature) from the work as in obtruding them; so in these particulars I have played myself the inquisitor, and find |