PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 413 



" he was designed to begin shortly, an edition in quarto, of all 

 " the works of Lord Bacon ; and he desired my advice, and 

 " any assistance I could give him ; to the end that, as far as 

 " possible, these works might come abroad with advantage, 

 " zvhich have been long received with the kindest eulogies, and 

 " with the most attested applause of the learned world *." This 

 letter was written in 1652, only twenty-six years after Bacon's 

 death ; and the important statement which it contains, in re- 

 gard to the early impression made by his writings in foreign 

 countries, will be found fully corroborated by a more particu- 

 lar examination of their literary records. 



With respect to France, the only direct authority to which 

 Mr Stewart refers, when he states it as " an unquestionable 

 " fact," that Bacon's writings were little known in that coun- 

 try till after the publication of the Encyclopedic, is that of 

 Montucla. After quoting a short passage to that effect from 

 the preface to this writer's History of Mathematics, he farther 

 remarks, in a Note, that " Bayle has devoted to Bacon only 

 " twelve lines of his Dictionary f." But, surely, no weight what- 

 ever can be attached to this circumstance, when it is recollect- 

 ed, that Bayle has not devoted even one line of that work, 

 in the shape of a separate article, either to Galileo or Des- 

 cartes. I must, besides, observe, that his notice of Ba- 

 con, scanty as it is, yet contains enough to show, that 

 Montucla's observation is not well founded. The article 

 mentions, generally, that Bacon's writings " had been favour- 



" ably 



* Tennisons Baconiana, p. 229 — Dr Wats, in the Dedication prefixed to his- 

 translation of the De Augmenlis Scientiarum, published in 1674, speaks of Bacon 

 " as an author well known in the European world" — Dr Shaw, in the Preface ta 

 his edition of Bacon's works, published in 1733, says, that " foreigners appear 

 to have extolled him in a superlative manner." 



•f Dissertation, p., 58. 



