NOTE A A A. 



Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer Buckhurst, (a) upon the same occasion, 



of sending his book of Advancement of Learning. 



May it please your good Lordship, I have finished a work touching the 

 Advancement or setting forward of Learning, which I have dedicated to his 

 majesty, the most learned of a sovereign, or temporal prince, that time hath 

 known. And upon reason not unlike, I humbly present one of the books to 

 your lordship, not only as a chancellor of an university, but as one that was 

 excellently bred in all learning, which I have ever noted to shine in all your 

 speeches and behaviours. And therefore your lordship will yield a gracious 

 aspect to your first love, and take pleasure in the adorning of that wherewith 

 yourself are so much adorned. And so humbly desiring your favourable accep 

 tation thereof, with signification of my humble duty, I 



remain. 



To Mr. Matthew. 



Sir, I perceive you have some time when you can be content to think of 

 your friends ; from whom since you have borrowed yourself, you do well, not 

 paying the principal, to send the interest at six months. The relation which 

 here 1 send you inclosed, carries the truth of that which is public ; and though 

 my little leisure might have required a briefer, yet the matter would have 

 endured and asked a larger. 



I have now at last taught that child to go, at the swaddling whereof you were. 

 My work touching the proficiency and advancement of learning, I have put 

 into two books ; whereof the former, which you saw, I cannot but account 

 as a page to the latter. I have now published them both ; whereof I thought 

 it a small adventure to send you a copy, who have more right to it than any 

 man, except Bishop Andrews, who was my inquisitor. 



The death of the late great judge concerned not me, because the other was 

 not removed. I write this in answer to your good wishes ; which 1 return not 

 as flowers of Florence, but as you mean them ; whom I conceive place cannot 

 alter, no more than time shall me, except it be for the better. 1605. 



Some short time after the publication of this work, probably about the year 

 1608, Sir Francis Bacon was desirous that the Advancement of Learning should 

 be translated into Latin j and, for this purpose, he applied to Dr. Playfer, the 

 Margaret professor of divinity in the university of Cambridge. 



Sir Francis&quot; Bacon, his Letter of request to Doctor Playfer, to translate the 

 book of Advancement of Learning into Latin. 



Mr. Doctor Playfer, A great desire will take a small occasion to hope, and 

 put in trial that which is desired. It pleased you, a eood while since, to 

 express unto me the good liking which you conceive of my book, of the 

 Advancement of Learning, and that more significantly (as it seemed to me) than 

 out of courtesy, or civil respect. Myself, as I then took contentment in your 

 approbation thereof, so I should esteem and acknowledge, not only my content 

 ment increased, but my labours advanced, if I might obtain your help in that 

 nature which I desire. Wherein, before I set down in plain terms my request 

 unto you, I will open myself, what it was which I chiefly sought, and pro 

 pounded to myself in that work, that you may perceive that which 1 now desire 

 to be pursuant thereupon, if I do not err. (For any judgment that a man 

 maketh^of his own doings, had need be spoken with a &quot;Si nunquam fallit 

 imago,&quot;) 1 have this opinion, that if I had sought my own commendation, it had 

 been a much fitter course for me to have done as gardeners use to do, by taking 

 their seeds and slips, and rearing them first into plants, and so uttering them in 

 pots, when they are in flower, and in their best state. But forasmuch as my 

 end was merit of the state of learning, to my power, and not glory ; and because 

 my purpose was rather to excite other men s wits, than to magnify my own, I 



(a) Chancellor of Oxford, Lord Treasurer, Earl of Dorset, celebrated as a 

 poet, an orator, and a writer. 



