PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 411 



con himself thought his writings had not met with due atten- 

 tion from the learned world. We have, indeed, his own evi- 

 dence to the contrary, in regard to the most important, and, as 

 he himself says, the most " abstruse" of them, — the Novum Or- 

 ganum. " I have received," says he, "from many parts be- 

 u yond the seas, testimonies touching that work, much beyond 

 " what I could have expected at the first in so abstruse an 

 " argument *." It is probable, therefore, that the bequest 

 of his Name to future generations, referred rather to his 

 public than to his philosophical character. In his act of submis- 

 sion presented to the House of Peers after his disgrace, he im- 

 plored them to recollect, that there are " vitia temporis as well as 

 " vitia hominis " and he perhaps soothed his wounded spirit 

 with the hope, that posterity would find an excuse for his frail- 

 ties, in the lax notions and practices of the age ; and would 

 look upon his fall, to use a comparison of his own, " but as a 

 " little picture of night- work, among the fair and excellent 

 " tables of his acts and works *f." The exact terms of the 

 clause, besides, seem to countenance the interpretation, that 

 his hopes pointed to the greater candour, rather than to the 

 greater intelligence of after times. " My name and memory," 

 says he, " I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign 

 " nations, and the next ages J." But whatever opinion may 

 be entertained upon this point, it will, I hope, appear evident 



3 F 2 in 



* Epistle to Bishop Andrews, prefixed to An Advertisement touching an Holy 

 War, written in 1622, and published by Dr Rawley in 1629, in a collection 

 entitled, Certain Miscellany Works of Lord Bacon, 4to. 



f Epistle to Bishop Andrews, prefixed to his Holy War. 



% Bacon's Works, vol. iii. p. 677. 



