OF THIS EDITION. v 



to that audience more of a hindrance than a help. If how- 

 ever his works live into another generation or travel out 

 of the circle to which they were originally addressed, the 

 conditions are changed. He now addresses a new set of 

 readers, differently prepared, knowing much which the others 

 were ignorant of, ignorant of much which the others knew, 

 and on both accounts requiring explanations and elucidations 

 of many things which to the original audience were suffi- 

 ciently intelligible. These it is the proper business of an 

 editor to supply. 



This- consideration suggested to me, when consulted about 

 a new edition of Bacon, the expediency of arranging his 

 works with reference not to subject, size, language, or 

 form but to the different classes of readers whose require- 

 ments he had in view when he composed them. So classi- 

 fied, they will be found to fall naturally into three principal 

 divisions. First, we have his works in philosophy and 

 general literature ; addressed to mankind at large, and meant 

 to be intelligible to educated men of all generations. Se- 

 condly, we have his works on legal subjects ; addressed to 

 lawyers, and presuming in the reader such knowledge as 

 belongs to the profession. Thirdly, we have letters, speeches, 

 charges, tracts, state-papers, and other writings of business; 

 relating to subjects so various as to defy classification, but 

 agreeing in this they were all addressed to particular per- 

 sons or bodies, had reference to particular occasions, assumed 

 in the persons addressed a knowledge of the circumstances 

 of the time, and cannot be rightly understood except in 

 relation to those circumstances. In this division every 

 thing will find a place which does not naturally fall into one 

 of the two former ; and thus we have the whole body of 

 Bacon's works arranged in three sufficiently distinguishable 

 classes, which may be called for shortness, 1st, The PHILO- 

 SOPHICAL and LITERARY ; 2nd, The PROFESSIONAL ; and 

 3rd, The OCCASIONAL. 



In each of these there is work for an editor to do, but 

 the help he can render differs in the several cases both in 



A 3 



