PREFACE 



TO THE 



COGITATA ET VISA. 



THE Cogitata et Visa stands first in Gruter's volume 

 of 1653, where it first appeared. That a work with 

 that title was composed about the year 1607 may be 

 inferred from the date (1607) of a letter addressed by 

 Bacon to Sir Thomas Bodley " after he had imparted 

 to him a writing entitled Cogitata et Visa;" from a 

 letter addressed (19 Feb. 1607) by Sir Thomas Bod- 

 ley to Bacon, giving his opinion of it ; and from an 

 entry in the Commentarius Solutus (26 July, 1608) 

 " Imparting my Cogitata et Visa, with choice, ut videb- 

 itur." Whether the writing here spoken of was ex- 

 actly the same as that which Gruter published it is 

 of course impossible to say. The following allusion in 

 Bacon's letter to Bodley " If you be not of the lodg- 

 ings chalked up, whereof I speak in my preface " 

 would seem rather to imply that it was not ; there 

 being no preface to the Cogitata as printed by Gruter, 

 nor any allusion to the chalked lodgings anywhere in 

 the work. And it is otherwise probable that it under- 

 went many alterations before it attained its final shape, 

 in which it must certainly be reckoned among the most 

 perfect of Bacon's productions. Allowance being made 



