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PREFACE. XXiX 
hastily. Dr. Playfer, Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cam- 
bridge, who had expressed the good liking he had conceived 
of the book, was applied to by Bacon to translate it into 
Latin, but the specimen of his version was too ornate for 
Bacon’s taste, and it was never completed. The two parts, 
in English only, were published together in quarto.some time 
about the end of October, and then not by Richard Ockould 
but by Henry Tomes, with the following title: ‘The Twoo 
Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and aduaunce- 
ment of Learning, diuine and humane. To the King. At 
London, Printed for Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his 
shop at Graies Inne Gate in Holborne. 1605.’ Ina letter from 
Chamberlain to Carleton on the 7th of November, the appear- 
* ance of Sir Francis Bacon’s new work on Learning is duly 
chronicled®. Any attention it might otherwise have attracted 
was no doubt greatly diminished by the event which then 
filled men’s minds, the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. In 
the investigations which followed this discovery, Bacon was 
only slightly concerned. A prospect of a vacancy occurs in 
the Solicitorship in March, 1606-7, and Bacon urges Cecil to 
press his claims. But he had again to wait. 
In the hurry and business of this session, the gossip of 
Carleton gives us a glimpse of Bacon, the statesman and 
. philosopher, in a new aspect. On the r1th of May, 1606, 
he writes to Chamberlain, ‘Sir Francis Bacon was married 
yesterday to his young wench in Maribone Chapel. He was 
clad from top to toe in purple, and hath made himself and His 
wife such store of fine raiments of cloth of silver and gold 
that it draws deep into her portion. The dinner was kept at 
his father-in-law Sir John Packington’s lodging over against 
¢In the present edition the text has been taken from that of 1605, 
corrected where necessary by the Errata and by the subsequent editions 
of 1629 and 1633. ‘The spelling has been modernized throughout. In 
tracing the quotations I have been materially assisted by Wats’ trans- 
lation of the De Augmentis, and the recent editions of the Advancement 
by Mr, Markby and Mr, Kitchin, 
