NOTES 3 Q 3 R. 



fore it cannot but seem strange, that it lay so long hid from the world ; 

 but what appears to me most surprising is, that it shews our author to have had 

 true notions, and as good a turn for economy as any man ever had, which 

 before the publication of this treatise, was thought the only kind of knowledge 

 in which he was deficient. But it seems it was one thing as a lawyer, states 

 man, and candidate for court favour, to enter into a detail of the Queen s 

 revenues, to consider the various methods in which they might be managed, 

 together with the advantages and disadvantages attending each method ; and 

 quite another, to enter with like spirit and diligence into his own affairs, which 

 if he had done, he might have passed his days more happily, and have left his 

 -fame without blemish.&quot; 



About the close of the succeeding year, 1598, he composed, on a particular 

 occasion, his History of the Alienation Office, which, however, was not pub 

 lished till many years after his decease. In this learned work he has fully 

 shewn how great a master he was, not in our law only, but in our history and 

 antiquities ; so that it may be justly said, there never fell any thing from his 

 pen, which more clearly and fully demonstrated his abilities in his profession. 

 It is not written in that dry, dark, and unentertaining way, which so much dis 

 courages young readers in the perusal of books of this kind ; but, on the contrary, 

 the style is pleasant and agreeable, though plain and suitable to the subject ; 

 and facts, authorities, observations, remarks, and reflections, are so judiciously 

 interwoven, that whoever reads it with a competent knowledge of the subject, 

 must acknowledge him an able lawyer and an elegant writer. It is needless to 

 mention some smaller instances of his abilities in the law, which nevertheless 

 were received by the learned society of which he was a member, with all 

 possible marks of veneration and esteem, and which they have preserved with 

 that reverence due to so worthy a person and so eminent an ornament of their 

 house. 



3 Q. Life, p. xlii. 



Chudley s case, Le Argument de Fr. Bacon, Lansdowne MSS. 1121. I have 

 procured a copy, and had I procured it in time, it should have been inserted in 

 the volume in this edition appropriated to law works. 



3 R. Life, p. xlii. 



I subjoin some notices and observations upon the reading in the Statute of 

 Uses. 



The first edition of which I have any knowledge, and of which there is a copy 

 in the British Museum, was in 1642. It is thus noticed in the Baconiana : 

 &quot; His lordship s seventh writing, touching Civil Policy in special, is his reading 

 on the Statute of Uses. The following is a copy of the title page : The learned 

 Reading of Sir Francis Bacon, one of her Majesties learned Counsell at Law, 

 pou the Statute of Uses : being his double Reading to the Honourable Society of 

 Grayes I tine. Published for the common good. London : printed for Mathew 

 Wulbancke, and Laurence Chapman. 1642. 



There have, of course, been various editions since 1642, of which the last 

 was by W. II. Rowe. No. 342 of Hargrave s MSS. contains Index to Bacon 

 on Statute of Uses. The copies in MS. in the Harleian collection in the British 

 Museum appear from the hand writing to have been both written prior to the 

 first printed edition ; that in No. 1853 is a complete copy, the other in No. 6688 

 is written very close in a neat hand, and contains about two-thirds only of the 

 reading ; it ends with this passage : &quot; The words that are common to both are 

 words expressing the conveyance whereby the use ariseth.&quot; 



Blackburn, vol. i. p. 184. We are now come to the learned reading upon 

 the Statute of Uses, being Mr. Bacon s double reading to the honourable 

 society of Gray s Inn, 42 Ehz. When this piece was first published, the state of 

 printing resembled the state of monarchy, both being at a low ebb ; and none 

 of our noble author s works have been more miserably racked and disjointed 



