NOTE G O G. 



majestic imitateth Christ, so I hope assuredly my lords of the upper house will 

 imitate you, and unto your rnajestie s grace and mercy, and next to my lords I 

 i-ecommend myself. It is not possible, nor it were not safe, for me to answer 

 particulars till I have my charge ; which when I shall receive, I shall without 

 figg leaves or disguise excuse what I can excuse, extenuate what I can ex- 



II. Observations upon the Account given by Bushel. 



The author of Bacon s Life, in the Biographia Britannica, says, &quot; We have 

 a long and formal detail of this matter, from one who might certainly be pre 

 sumed to know a great deal of it : viz. Mr. Bushel, who was his lordship s 

 servant at that time, and who having ruined himself by engaging in the working 

 of mines, upon pretence of following his lord s philosophical theory on that 

 subject, endeavoured, while a prisoner in the Fleet, to apologize for his own 

 conduct, by publishing a speech, which he asserts his master intended to have 

 made to that parliament in which he was undone, upon this subject, and for 

 procuring the establishment of a Royal Academy of Sciences, on the plan deli 

 vered in a work of his, entitled, his New Atlantis, which speech of his, though 

 it may contain some thoughts of Lord Bacon s, is allowed by the learned Dr. 

 Tenison to be in a great measure fictitious, and not only unworthy of that noble 

 person, but such as it was impossible for him to have drawn. It is at the close of 

 this speech, and in order to account for its not being spoken, that Mr. Bushel 

 mentions his master s fall, which, he says, intervened before it could be spoken, 

 and thereupon undertakes to give us all the circumstances of that extraordinary 

 event from his own knowledge, which, if it could be depended upon, must be 

 admitted to be a thing extremely worthy our notice : but 1 at present produce it 

 with a view to gratify the inclination of the ingenious reader, of seeing whatever 

 has been advanced on this subject on either side. In this light too, Mr. 

 Bushel s account is a matter of some consequence, since it is the fullest and 

 most circumstantial that has been hitherto given. 



&quot; Bushel was a very strange man, and has told so many improbable stories 

 of his master, and so many silly ones of himself, that what he says deserves no 

 credit, farther than as it agrees with other evidence.&quot; Tenison s Account of 

 Lord Bacon s Works, p. 97. 



\Vhat authority there is for the assertion in the parts underlined, the reader 

 may judge, by an examination of the observations in Archbishop Tenison s 

 work, which is annexed. But that Archbishop Tenison did not doubt the cor 

 rectness of Bushel s statement, appears from the following passage in the Arch 

 bishop s Baconiana. 



&quot; The great cause of his suffering, is to some, a secret. I leave them to 

 find it out, by his words to King James, I wish (said he) that as I am the 

 first, so I may be the last of sacrifices in your times. And when from private 

 appetite, it is resolved, that a creature shall be sacrificed ; it is easie to pick up 

 sticks enough, from any thicket whither it hath straid, to make a fire to offer it 

 with.&quot; 



But even if he had entertained doubts, we must judge by one of the funda 

 mental rules in all reasoning. Is it most probable that Bushel should, at the 

 age of sixty years, have invented this anecdote, or that it is true 1 



The following is the passage in Archbishop Tenison s work, to which the 

 editor of the Life, in the Biographia Britannica, refers. 



Archbishop Tenison, in his account of Lord Bacon s works, says : &quot; There 

 is annexed a certain speech touching the recovery of drowned mineral works, 



aared, as Mr. Bushel saith, for that parliament under which he fell. His 

 ship, no doubt, had such a project ; and he might prepare a speech also, 

 for the facilitating of it. But that this is a true copy of that speech, I dare not 

 avouch. His lordship s speeches were wont to be digested into more method ; 

 his periods were more round, his words more choice, his allusions more fre 

 quent, and managed with more decorum. And as no man had greater com 

 mand of words, for the illustration of matter, than his lordship ; so here he had 

 matter which refused not to be clothed in the best words.&quot; 



