NOTF.8 Q R. 



Q. Life, p. xvii. 



STATE OF EUROPE. 



This tract is supposed by Mallet to have been the first work written by Lord 

 Bacon, and to have been written about the year 1580, when he was between 

 nineteen and twenty years of age: because it states, &quot; that Henry III. of 

 France was then thirty years old : now that king began his reign in 1576, at 

 the age of twenty-four years, so that Bacon was then nineteen.&quot; How far this 

 evidence is satisfactory, may be collected from other parts of the same tract. It 

 says, &quot; Gregory X11I. of the age of seventy years :&quot; but Gregory XIII. was 

 seventy years old in the year 1572, when he was elected Pope, so that, accord 

 ing to this reasoning, it might be inferred that it was written when Bacon was 

 twelve years of age. In another part of the tract it states, &quot; The King of Spain , 

 Philip, son to Charles the Fifth, about sixty years of age : but he was born on 

 the 21st of May, 1527, so that he was sixty years old in 1587, when Bacon was 

 between sixteen and seventeen years old. The author of Bacon s Life, in the 

 Biographia Britannica, from these different dates, concludes that the tract was 

 written at different periods of time, beginning, as he must suppose, when Bacon 

 was quite a boy ; but, as it was not necessary for the purposes of this tract that 

 the ages of the different monarchs should be ascertained with great precision, it 

 is, perhaps, not probable that they were accurately examined, and the only fair 

 inference is, that it was written at a very early period of his life.* 



The same author says, &quot; But what is extremely remarkable in this small 

 treatise, is the care and accuracy with which he has set down most of the little 

 princes in Germany, with the state of their dominions.&quot; This minute observa 

 tion, however, extends to all his works : and of all the extraordinary properties 

 of Bacon s wonderful mind, his constant observation of what we, in common 

 parlance, call trifles, appears to be one of the most extraordinary. He says that 

 whoever will not attend to matters because they are too minute or trifling, shall 

 never obtain command or rule over nature. The nature of every thing is best 

 seen in its smallest portions. The philosopher, while he gazed upwards to the 

 stars, fell into the water, but if he had looked down he might have seen the stars 

 in the water. The property of the loadstone was discovered in needles of iron, 

 and not in bars of iron. He who cannot dilate the sight of his mind, should 

 consider whether it is not better for a man in a fair room to set up one great 

 light or branching candlestick of lights, than to go about with a small watch- 

 candle into every corner. 



R. Life, p. xxii. 



His tract upon Universal Justice was published in 1623, in the treatise De 

 Augmentis Scientiarum, and will afterwards be explained. See Note C C 

 postea. 



His different works upon practical parts of the law are : 1st. Elements of the 

 Common Law, including Maxims of the Law, and the Use of the Law ; 2ndly. 

 A Treatise on the Statute of Uses ; 3rdly. A Treatise on the Office of Con 

 stables ; and 4thly. An Account of the Office for Alienations; the particulars 

 of which will be mentioned in the order of time in which they were written. 



He wrote several tractates upon that subject, wherein though some great 

 masters of the law did outgo him in bulk and particularities of cases, yet in the 

 science of the grounds and mysteries of the law he was exceeded by none. 

 Rawley. 



* The tract says, &quot; D. Antonio, elect King of Portugal, is now in France, 

 where he hath levied soldiers, whereof part are embarked, hoping to be restored 

 again.&quot; 



VOL. XV. 2 



