PREFACE. Vii 



Masculus &quot;* from &quot; Reperio &quot; to &quot; provoco.&quot; The 

 second tract from &quot; Temporis&quot; to &quot; sunt&quot; is from 

 Gruter. 



From the Latin works of Lord Bacon I have 

 separated the translations by different authors from 



* Archbishop Tenison, in the Baconiana, says, &quot; Lost, like 

 wise, is a book which he wrote in his youth, he called it Tem 

 poris Partus Maximus, the greatest birth of time: or rather, 

 Temporis Partus Masculus, the masculine birth of time. For so 

 Gruter found it called in some of the papers of Sir William 

 Boswel. This was a kind of embryo of the Instauration : and if 

 it had been preserved, it might have delighted and profited 

 philosophical readers, who could then have seen the generation 

 of that great work, as it were from the first egg of it.&quot; 



In the Baconiana (200) there is the translation of a letter 

 written in Latin by the Lord Verulam to Father Fulgentio, the Ve 

 netian, concerning his writings, and now translated into Englishby 

 the publisher. In this Tract he says, &quot; Our meanness (you see) 

 attempteth great things ; placing our hopes only in this, that they 

 seem to proceed from the providence and immense goodness of 

 God.&quot; 



And I am, by two arguments, thus persuaded. First, I 

 think thus from the zeal and constancy of my mind, which has 

 not waxed old in this design, nor after so many years grown 

 cold and indifferent. I remember, that about forty years ago, I 

 composed a juvenile work about these things, which with great 

 confidence, and a pompous title, I called Temporis Partum 

 Maximum, or the most considerable birth of time.&quot; 



As Bacon here says, that this tract Temporis Partus Masculus 

 was published about forty years before his letter to Fulgentio ; and 

 as this letter was written after his retirement from office, as it 

 contains the following passages : The &quot; Novum Organurn 

 should have immediately followed :&quot; but I interposed my moral 

 and political writings, because they were more in readiness. 



