PREFACE TO THE NEW ATLANTIS. 



was then. In 1609, when he published the De Sapi- 

 entid Veterum, he inclined to believe that an age of 

 higher intellectual development than any the world 

 then knew of had flourished and passed out of mem 

 ory long before Homer and Hesiod wrote ; and this 

 upon the clearest and most deliberate review of all the 

 obvious objections ; and more decidedly than he had 

 done four years before when he published the Advance 

 ment of Learning. And I have little doubt that when 

 he wrote the New Atlantis he thought it not improba 

 ble that the state of navigation in the world 3000 years 

 before was really such as the Governor of the House 

 of Strangers describes ; that some such naval expedi 

 tions as those of Coya and Tyrambel may really have 

 taken place ; and that the early civilisation of the 

 Great Atlantis may really have been drowned by a 

 deluge and left to begin its career again from a state 

 of mere barbarism. 



Amoncr the few works of fiction which Bacon at- 



G 



tempted, the New Atlantis is much the most consid 

 erable ; which gives an additional interest to it, and 

 makes one the more regret that it was not finished 

 according to the original design. Had it proceeded 

 to the end in a manner worthy of the beginning, it 

 would have stood, as a work of art, among the most 

 perfect compositions of its kind. 



The notes to this piece, which are not marked with 

 Mr. Ellis s initials, are mine. 



J. S. 



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