PREFATORY EPISTLES.

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MR. ANTHONY BACON,

HIS DEAR BROTHER.

LOVING and beloved brother, I do now like some that have an orchard ill neighboured, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing. These fragments of my conceits were going to print: to labour the stay of them had been troublesome, and subject to interpretation; to let them pass had been to adventure the wrong they might receive by untrue copies, or by some

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MY LOVING BROTHER,

SIR JOHN CONSTABLE, KT.

My last Essays I dedicated to my dear brother, Mr. Anthony Bacon, who is with God. Looking among my papers this vacation, I found others of the same nature: which if I myself shall not suffer to be lost, it seemeth the world will not, by the often printing of the former. Missing my brother, I found you next; in respect of bond, both of near alliance, and of straight friendship and society, and particularly of communication in studies; wherein I must acknowledge myself beholden to you: for as my business found rest in my contemplations, so my contemplations ever found rest in your loving conference and judgment: so wishing you all good, I remain

1612.

Your loving brother and friend,

FRA. BACON.

TO THE

RIGHT HON. MY VERY GOOD LORD

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM,

HIS GRACE LORD HIGH ADMIRAL OF ENGLAND.

EXCELLENT LORD,

SOLOMON says, "A good name is as a precious ointment;" and I assure myself such will your Grace's name be with posterity: for your fortune and merit both have been eminent; and you have planted things that are like to last. I do now publish my Essays; which, of all my other works, have been most current: for that, as it seems, they come home to men's business and bosoms. I have enlarged them both in number and weight; so that they are indeed a new work: I thought it therefore agreeable to my affection and obligation to your Grace, to prefix your name before them, both in English and

Latin: for I do conceive, that the Latin volume of them, being in the universal language, may last as long as books last. My Instauration I dedicated to the King; my History of Henry the Seventh, which I have now translated into Latin, and my portions of Natural History, to the Prince; and these I dedicate to your Grace, being of the best fruits, that, by the good increase which God gives to my pen and labours, I could yield. God lead your Grace by the hand.

Your Grace's most obliged

And faithful servant,

FR. ST. ALBAN.

ESSAYS,

CIVIL AND MORAL.

OF

Truth.

WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting: and, though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only

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