NOTE 3 1. 



Lord Bacon s Essays, Chamberlain s Letters, 17th Dec. 1612. &quot; Sir Francis 

 Bacon hath set out new essays, where in a chapter of Deformity, the world takes 

 notice that he points out his little cousin to the life.* 



See Hay s Essays on Deformity, where there is a running comment upon this 

 essay of Lord Bacon s. 



Professor Stewart, in his introductory lecture, says, &quot;The ethical disqui 

 sitions of Bacon are almost entirely of a practical nature. Of the two theo 

 retical questions so much agitated in both parts of this island, during the 

 eighteenth century, concerning the principle, and the object of moral approba 

 tion, he has said nothing; but he has opened some new and interesting views 

 with respect to the influence of custom and the formation of habits, a most im 

 portant article of moral philosophy, on which he has enlarged more ably and 

 more usefully than any writer since Aristotle. Under the same head of ethics, 

 may be mentioned the small volume to which he has given the title of Essays ; 

 the best known and the most popular of all his works. It is also one of those 

 where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage ; the 

 novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from the 

 triteness of the subject. It may be read from beginning to end in a few hours ; 

 and yet after the twentieth perusal one seldom fails to remark in it something 

 overlooked before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon s writings, and 

 is only to be accounted by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish our own 

 thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties.&quot; 

 Dugald Stewart s First Dissertation, p. 54. 



In the critique upon this introduction in the Edinburgh Review for Septem 

 ber, 1816, the author says, &quot; We more properly contrast than compare the 

 experiments in The Natural History, with the moral and political observations 

 which enrich the Advancement of Learning, the Speeches, the Letters, the 

 History of Henry the Seventh, and above all, the Essays, a book which, though 

 it has been praised with equal fervour by Voltaire, Johnson, and Burke, has 

 never been characterized with such exact justice and such exquisite felicity of 

 expression as in the discourse before us. It will serve still more distinctly to 

 mark the natural tendency of his mind, to observe that his moral and political 

 reflections relate to these practical subjects, considered in their most practical 

 point of view ; and that he has seldom or never attempted to reduce to theory 

 the infinite particulars of that civil knowledge which, as he himself tells us, 

 is, of all others, most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom.&quot; 

 Edinburgh Review, Sept. 1816. 



Translations of the Essays. 



Latin. 



Bacon s notice of the Latin edition. Of this translation, Bacon speaks in the 

 following letter : 



&quot; To Mr. Tobie Matthew. 



It is true my labours are now most set to have those works which I had for. 

 merly published, as that of Advancement of Learning, that of Henry VII. that 

 of the Essays, being retractate, and made more perfect, well translated into 

 Latin by the help of some good pens, which forsake me not. For these modern 

 languages will, at one time or other, play the bankrupt with books ; and since I 

 have lost much time with this age, I would be glad, as God shall give me 

 leave, to recover it with posterity. For the Essay of Friendship, while I took 

 your speech of it for a cursory request, I took my promise for a compliment. 

 But since you call for it, I shall perform it.&quot; 



In his letter to Father Fulgentio,t giving some account of his writings, he 

 says, &quot; The Novum Organum should immediately follow, but my Moral and 

 political writings step in between as being more finished. These are the History 



* The Earl of Salisbury, the Lord Treasurer, who is elsewhere called by 

 Chamberlain the &quot; little great man ; alluding, I suppose, to his size. 

 t Baconiana, page 19t. 



