XXV111 PREFACE. 



I subjoin the evidence, external and internal, 

 which I have been able to discover in favour and 

 in opposition to their authenticity. 



The following are the external reasons against 

 their authenticity 1st, Soon after Lord Bacon s 

 death there were various spurious works ascribed to 

 him, with which the Remains abound (b). 2dly,This 



am quite at a loss to determine. If an ingenious man means 

 to deride the belief of Christianity, could he have done it more 

 effectually than in the work just now alluded to? Mr. Hume 

 would say No. There is some uncertainty as to the authen 

 ticity of this little tract. I suspect that Bacon meant to try 

 his strength, and then to return quietly to the habitual convic 

 tion of his mind, that Christianity is true.&quot; 



(bj In Rawley s Epistle to the Reader in the Resuscitatio, 

 he says, &quot; For some of the pieces, herein contained, his Lord 

 ship did not aim at the publication of them, but at the preser 

 vation only, and prohibiting them from perishing, so as to have 

 been reposed in some private shrine, or library: but now, for 

 that, through the loose keeping of his Lordship s papers, whilst 

 he lived, divers surreptitious copies have been taken ; which 

 have since employed the press with sundry corrupt and mangled 

 editions ; whereby nothing hath been more difficult than, to find 

 the Lord Saint Alban in the Lord Saint Alban; and which have 

 presented (some of them) rather a fardle of nonsense, than any 

 true expressions of his Lordship s happy vein ; I thought myself 

 in a sort tied to vindicate these injuries and wrongs done to the 

 monuments of his Lordship s pen ; and at once, by setting forth 

 the true and genuine writings themselves, to prevent the like 

 invasions for the time to come.&quot; And Archbishop Tenison 

 says, * This general acceptance of his works has exposed him to 

 that ill and unjust usage which is common to eminent writers. 

 For on such are fathered, sometimes spurious treatises; some 

 times most corrupt copies of good originals ; sometimes their 

 essays and first thoughts upon good subjects, though laid aside 



