DR. RAWLEY'S LIFE OF BACON. 9 



plation and studies a thing whereof his lordship would often 

 speak during his active life, as if he affected to die in the shadow 

 and not in the light; which also may be found in several passages 

 of his works. In which time he composed the greatest part of 

 his books and writings, both in English and Latin, which I will 

 enumerate (as near as I can) in the just order wherein they 

 were written l : The History of the Reign of King Henry the 

 Seventh; Abcedarium Natures, or a Metaphysical piece which 

 is lost 2 ; Historia Ventorum ; Historia Vita et Mortis ; His- 

 toria Demi et Rari, not yet printed 3 ; Historia Gravis et 

 Levis, which is also lost 4 ; a Discourse of a War with Spain; a 



justice: Secondly, to what extent the practice was prevalent at the time, for it is a 

 rare virtue in a man to resist temptations to which all his neighbours yield : Thirdly, 

 how far it was tolerated, for a practice may be universally condemned and yet uni- 

 versally tolerated ; people may be known to be guilty of it and yet received in society 

 all the same: Fourthly, how it stood with regard to other abuses prevailing at the same 

 time, for it is hard to reform all at once, and it is one thing for a man to leave a 

 single abuse unreformed while he is labouring to remove or resist greater ones, and 

 another thing to introduce it anew, or to leave all as it was, making no effort to remove 

 any. Now all this is from the nature of the case very difficult to ascertain. But the 

 whole question, as it regards Bacon's character, must be considered in connexion with 

 the rest of his political life, and will be fully discussed in its place in the Occasional 

 works; where all the evidence I can find shall be faithfully exhibited. In this place 

 it may be enough to say that he himself always admitted the taking of presents as he 

 had taken them to be indefensible, the sentence to be just, and the example salutary; 

 and "yet always denied that he had been an unjust judge, or " had ever had bribe or 

 reward in his eye or thought when he pronounced any sentence or order ; " and that I 

 cannot find any reason for doubting that this was true. It is stated, indeed, in a manu- 

 script of Sir Matthew Hale's, published by Hargrave, that the censure of Bacon " for 

 many decrees made upon most gross bribery and corruption .... gave such a dis- 

 credit and brand to the decrees thus obtained that they were easily set aside ; " and it 

 is true that some bills were brought into the House of Commons for the purpose of 

 setting aside such decrees ; but I cannot find that any one of them reached a third 

 reading ; and it is clear from Sir Matthew's own argument that he could not produce 

 an instance of one reversed by the House of Lords ; and if any had been reversed by a 

 royal commission appointed for the purpose (which according to his statement was the 

 only remaining way), it must surely have been heard of; yet where is the record of any 

 such commission ? Now if of all the decrees so discredited none were reversed, it is 

 difficult to resist the conclusion that they had all been made bond fide with regard only 

 to the merits of the cases, and were in fact unimpeachably just; and we may believe 

 that Bacon pronounced a true judgment on his own case when he said to his friends , 

 (as I find it recorded in a manuscript of Dr. Rawley's in the Lambeth Library), " I 

 was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years ; but it was the justest 

 censure in parliament that was these two hundred years." 



1 In the Latin version Rawiey adds, quam prasens observavi ; which gives this list 

 a peculiar value. 



2 A fragment of this piece was recovered and printed by Tenison in the Baconiana ; 

 and will appear in this edition after the Historia Ventorum, which it was intended to 

 accompany. 



8 This was true in 1657 ; but it was printed the next year in the Opuscula \/ 

 Philosophica ; and, therefore, for " not yet printed," the Latin version substitutes 

 jam primum typis mandata. In the edition of 1661 a corresponding alteration ought 

 to have been made in the English, but was not ; and as the words occur in one of 

 the cancelled leaves they must have been left by oversight. 



4 This was probably the tract which Gruter says he once had in his hands, and 

 which he describes as merely a skeleton, exhibiting heads of chapters not filled up. 

 " De Gravi et Levi in manibus halui integrum ct yrande volumen, sed quod, prater 



