OF THIS EDITION. XV 



Though this volume is already twice as thick as I would 

 have had it, I must add a few words concerning the portraits 

 of Bacon ; a subject which has not received the attention which 

 it deserves, and upon which, if picture-dealers and collectors 

 and inheritors of family portraits would take an interest in it, 

 some valuable light might probably be thrown. 



The portrait in .the front of the volume is taken from an 

 old engraving by Simon Pass ; which came, (as Mr. Smith 

 of Lisle Street informed me, from whom I bought it some 

 years ago,) out of a broken-up copy of Holland's Baziliologia. 1 

 The original has a border, bearing the words HONORATISS : 



D 8 . FRANCISCUS BACON I EQUES AU I MAG *. SIGTLL I ANGL : 



GUSTOS. Above are his arms, with the motto MONITI ME- 

 LIORA. Below the chancellor's bag, on which the left hand 

 rests. These accessories, as being presumably the device of 

 the engraver and not suitable to the modern style which has 

 been preferred for the copy, have been dispensed with ; but 

 the inscription underneath has been copied verbatim 2 , and 

 enables us to fix the date of the work. Bacon was created 

 Lord Chancellor on the 4th of January, 1617-18, and Baron 

 Verulam on the 1 2th of the following July ; and as it is not 

 to be supposed that his newest title would have been omitted 

 on such an occasion, we may infer with tolerable certainty 

 that the engraving was published during the first half of the 

 year 1618. Below this inscription are engraved in small 

 letters the words " Simon Passceus sculpsit L. Are to be 

 sould by John Sudbury and George Humble at the signe 

 of the white horse in Pope's head Ally" The plate ap- 

 pears to have been used afterwards for a frontispiece to the 

 Sylva Sylvarum, which was published in 16^7, the year 

 after Bacon's death. At least I have a copy of the second 



1 This work was published in 1618; and though one would not expect from the 

 title to find Bacon there, Brunet mentions a copy in the Biblioth. du Roi at Paris 

 qui, outre les portraits qui composent ordinairement le recueil, renferme encore 

 d'autres portraits du meme genre, representants des reines, des princes du sang, et des 

 seigneurs de la cour des Rois Jacques I er et Charles I or ," &c. The copy in the British 

 Museum has no portrait of Bacon ; but as the plates are not numbered, and there is 

 no table of contents, one cannot be sure that any copy is perfect. 



2 The righte Honourable S r Frauncis Bacon knight, Lorde highe Chancellour of 

 Englande and one of his Ma tiei most hon blc privie Counsell. 



