208 LETTERS FROM THE BACON I ANA. 



in fronte voluminis demandasti. Quasi parum esset musas 

 de tua penu locupletare, nisi ostenderes quo modo et ipsae 

 discerent. Solenniori itaque osculo acerrimum judieii tui 

 depositum excepit frequentissimus purpuratoruui senatus ; 

 exceperunt pariter minoris ordinis gentes ; et quod omnes 

 in publico librorum thesaurario, in memoria singuli de- 

 posuerunt. 



Dominationis vestrse studiosissima 



Academia Oxoniensis. 

 E Domo nostra congregationis, 

 20th Decem. 1623. 



The Superscription was thus : 



To the Right Honourable Francis, Baron 

 of Verulam, and Viscount of St. Alban, 

 our very good Lord. 



The same in English by the Publisher. 



Most Noble, and ( ) most learned Viscount. 



Your honour could have given nothing more agreeable, 

 and the &quot;University could have received nothing more ac 

 ceptable than the sciences. And those sciences which she 

 formerly sent forth poor, of low stature, unpolished, she hath 

 received elegant, tall, and by the supplies of your wit, by 

 which alone they could have been advanced, most rich in 

 dowry. She esteemeth it an extraordinary favour to have 

 a return with usury, made of that by a stranger, if so near 

 a relation may be called a stranger, which she bestows as a 

 patrimony upon her children. And she readily acknow- 

 legeth, that though the muses are born in Oxford they 

 grow elsewhere. Grown they are, and under your pen, 

 who, like some mighty Hercules, in learning have by your 

 own hand further advanced those pillars in the learned 

 world, which by the rest of that world were supposed 

 immovable. 



We congratulate you, you most accomplished combatant, 



