PREFACE. 



ABOUT thirty years ago I read in the Will of Lord 

 Bacon &quot; For my burial, I desire it may be in St. 

 Michael s Church, St. Albans : there was my mother 

 buried, and it is the parish church of my mansion- 

 house of Gorhambury, and it is the only Christian 

 church within the walls of Old Verulam. For my 

 name and memory, I leave it to men s charitable 

 speeches, to foreign nations and the next ages.&quot; 



This passage, not to be seen till he was at rest 

 from his labours, impressed me with a feeling of his 

 consciousness of ill usage, and a conviction that the 

 time would arrive when justice would be done to his 

 memory. Sir Philip Sydney says, &quot; I never read 

 the old song of Percy and Douglas, without feeling 

 my heart stirred as by the sound of a trumpet ;&quot; and 

 assuredly this voice from the grave was not heard 

 by me with less emotion. 



The words were cautiously selected, with the 

 knowledge which he, above all men, possessed of 

 their force and pregnant meaning, and of their certain 



