CHAP. I.

Dr. Tenison in his "account

LETTERS AND LIFE OF FRANCIS BACON.
Rawley either never heard of this letter of advice (which when he
published the Resuscitatio, in 1657, might casily be) or did not be-
lieve it to be of Bacon's composition.
of all the Lord Bacon's works" (Baconiana, 1679) takes no notice
of it; though it had then twice appeared in print with Bacon's
name:-sixteen years before in the second edition of the Cabala;
nine years before in Lloyd's State Worthies: and it is hard to be-
lieve that he had not seen it in one or other of them. Nor does
Stephens's catalogue, which I take to be a copy of Tenison's list of

the

spapers received by him in 1782 from the executor of the executor
of Sir Thomas Meautys, contain any title descriptive of it. Its
first appearance in any collection of Bacon's works was in 1730,
when Blackbourne included it in his edition of the Opera omnia.
It has held its place since: and its right to appear there (though I

agree with Professor Craik that the evidence of authorship is chiefly
internal) may be regarded, I think, as indisputable. But the form
in which it is set out, and which all succeeding editors have faith-
fully reproduced, is in my opinion injudicious and unsatisfactory.
The editor meant, no doubt, to preserve all that was material in both
versions; but he forgot to give us any means of ascertaining how
much of that which he took for his text was contained also in the
other: and without knowing that, how can we know what the other
consisted of? His mode of proceeding he has himself described.
He had before him three different copies: one in a separate quarto
volume, published in 1661: another in the second edition of the
Cabala, 1663; a third in Lloyd's State Worthies, 1670. Of these
three, the copy in the Cabala being the fullest and most complete,
he took it for his text, collated it with the other copies, and “in
settling and correcting the copy as he went along, wherever he ob-
served a material variation of the sense or substance in the quarto of
1661, he included it in crotchets thus [ ] and inserted it." If he
had remembered that the clear omission of a passage is "a material
variation of sense and substance," no less than a different reading of
it-and had distinguished all passages so omitted in the quarto-he
would have supplied us substantially with the information we want.
But this he seems to have forgotten. The variations which he
notices are only such as occur either in passages common to both
copies, or in passages peculiar to the quarto. Where a sentence is
found in both without material variation, nothing is said about it.
Where a sentence which is found in the Cabala is omitted altogether

See above, Vol. II. c. i. § 2.

"An account of the present edition "-(i.e. Blackbourne's edition, 1730). Vol. i. p. 177.

i

1616.] ADVICE TO VILLIERS-THE TWO VERSIONS.

11

in the quarto, nothing is said about that. How then are we to guess what the quarto is really like? how judge whether it is to be taken for the earlier or the later copy-the rough sketch or the improved edition? To judge of this we must refer to the original; of which the only copy I have met with is in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

An examination of this has satisfied me that it represents the composition in an earlier form than the copy in the Cabala. But the differences between the two are so many that a really complete collation would cause more trouble to all parties than a reprint in full of both. This, therefore, I have given. The reader will then be able to judge for himself of the points in question; and I think ho will conclude with me that the letter as printed in the quarto of 1661 is the letter as it was first drawn up; that it is not a fragment or a rudiment, but a thing finished and complete in itself; and that the copy in the Cabala is the same letter corrected, enlarged, and worked out in greater detail.

At what time or times this improved version was produced, and with what object-whether to provide a handsome occasion for reminding Villiers of the counsel formerly given, or to furnish a specimen of a treatise de negotiis gerendis, or simply to satisfy the natural desire a man sometimes feels to complete an unfinished or amend an imperfect work of his own hands-ull this must be left to conjecture. Any of these motives may have led Bacon to take it up at any time, and the existence of such an enlarged and amended edition would have called for no further explanation, were it not for the singularity which I have already mentioned-the title which is given in it to the person addressed.

But if the copy in the quarto (in which that person is addressed as "My Lord") was the earlier, how is it that in the enlarged copy made afterwards he is addressed only as "Sir"? It cannot be denied that this is a serious difficulty-a difficulty which would have been thought sufficient to determine the question of priority the other way, if all difficulties could have been got rid of by that supposition. But that is by no means the case; and I find it harder to believe that the quarto version was posterior in date, than to devise a theory which, without involving anything improbable in itself would account for the appearance of the title in the earlier copy and its disappearance from the later.

I must first observe that there is something singular about this title even as it appears in the quarto-something which demands a conjectural explanation. "My Lord" and "your Lordship" occur, it will be seen, only in the first two paragraphs; throughout the

rest of the letter the same person is addressed as "Sir." Now I think it would be hard to find another case in which a nobleman, not of royal blood, was intentionally called "Sir." That it hap pened through inadvertence, though not impossible, is in a case like this very improbable; and the thing admits of an easier explanation. We know enough of Bacon's habits of composition to justify us in assuming that in writing a letter of this importance to a person in Villiers's position he would make first a rough draft and then a fair copy in his own hand. It may casily have happened that Villiers was made a Viscount after it was written fair and before it was dispatched. In that case he might think it good manners to take off the first leaf and rewrite it, in order to introduce the new title; but might not be at leisure or think it worth while to write out again the whole of so long a letter. If so, the rough draft, addressed throughout to Sir George Villiers, would remain in his cabinet, probably without any note of the alteration; and if at some later time, upon any of the motives I have suggested or any that others may suggest, he took it in hand to correct, amplify, and make more complete, he may easily have forgotten the accident of the change in Villiers's style at that particular juncture, and worked it out according to its original form and intention-that of a letter of advice to a young man newly adopted as the King's declared Favourite.

I have thought the paper interesting and important enough in itself to justify this little speculation as to its history. But the point is not otherwise of any consequence. Nothing material depends upon the question whether it was written early or late in the year 1616, or how it came to be rewritten. Upon any view of it-if it was written by Bacon-it contains his deliberate opinion as to the duty of a "Favourite" in those days-that is of a private and confidential councillor chosen by the King out of personal affection. The office itself was one which he did not approve of. It was of the nature of what was then called a "Cabinet Council," (a very dif ferent thing from that which now goes by that name); a remedy proposed in Italy and practised in France for certain inconve niences incident to Councils of State; but a remedy, he says in his Essay of Counsel, "worse than the disease: which hath turned Metis the wife to Metis the mistress; that is Councils of State, to which Princes are married, to Councils of gracious persons recommended chiefly by flattery and affection." 1 I suppose the councils to which he alludes were bodies exercising the authority of Councils of State; This was written before 1612. See Literary and Professional Works, vol. i.

pp. 424, 555.

ADVICE TO VILLIERS-THE FIRST VERSION.

13

ch was not the case with James's favourites, for they had no hority more than belonged to the offices to which they might be moted. But the censure of the one was in effect a censure of .: other, and before the publication of the essay in which it was expressed (which was shortly after the death of Salisbury) the application had become so obvious as to suggest the suppression of the last clause. But as Bacon could not prevent the King from being governed by a Favourite, his next best service was to inspire the Favourite with an honest ambition to govern him wisely and well. And the opportunity being offered to him, this is the way in which he endeavoured to take advantage of it.

In this case, as in others of the kind, I do not hold it to be any part of my business either to applaud or to defend or to correct the opinions expressed; but only to represent them faithfully, and to explain them where explanation is needed and I have any to offer. My contribution here will consist chiefly of the reprint of the first copy, which to almost everybody will be as new as if it were printed for the first time; and a rather better edition of the second by help of a manuscript in the Lansdowne collection, which has not been collated before.

A LETTER OF ADVICE, WRITTEN BY SIR FRANCIS BACON TO the Duke of Buckingham, WHEN HE BECAME FAVOURITE TO KING JAMES.

My noble Lord,

Being over-ruled by your Lordship's command, first by word, and since by your letters, I have chosen rather to show my obedience than to dispute the danger of discovering my weakness in adventuring to give advice in a subject too high for mc. But I know I commit it to the hands of a noble friend, and to any others, for the nature of the discourse, it is not communicable.

My Lord, when the blessing of God (to whom in the first place, I know, you ascribe your preferment) and the King's favour (purchased by your noble parts, promising as much as can be expected from a Gentleman) had brought you to this high pitch of honour, to be in the cyc, and ear, and even in the bosom of your gracious Master, and you had found by experience, the trouble of all men's confluence, and for all matters, to yourself as a mediator between them and their Sovereign, you were pleased to lay this command upon me:

LETTERS AND LIFE OF FRANCIS BACON.

[CHAP. I.

First in general, to give you my poor advice for your carriage in so eminent a place, and of so much danger, if not wisely discharged. Next in particular, by what means to give dispatches to suitors of all sorts, for the King's best service, the suitors' satisfaction, and your own case. I humbly return unto you mine opinion in both these, such as an Hermit, rather than a

Courtier can render.

You are now the King's Favourite, so voted, and so esteemed

by all.

In the first place, then, give me leave to tell you what this significs; and next, what is the duty that lies upon you towards the King. That being done in a few words, I shall then come to the particulars which you must insist upon to facilitate your dispatches. It is no new thing for Kings and Princes to have their privadoes, their favourites, their friends. They have done it sometimes out of their affection to the person of the man (for Kings have their affections as well as private men), sometimes in contemplation of their great abilities (and that's a happy choice), and sometimes for their own ends, to make them whom they so stile, and are contented should be so stiled, to be interposed between the Prince and the People. Take it in either or any of these significations, let it be a caution unto you. If the King have made choice of you out of his affection, or out of the opinion of your worth, to communicate his bosom thoughts with you, or perhaps to debate them, and so ripen his own judgment; you are bound in gratitude to return so much as possibly you can to advance your Master's service and honour. But were it (as I am confident it is not) to interpose you between himself and the envy of his people in general, or of some discontented party in particular, then you are bound for your own sake to watch over your actions.

Remember then what your truc condition is. The King himself is above the reach of his people, but cannot be above their censures; and you are his shadow, if either he commit an error and is loath to avow it, but excuses it upon his Ministers, of which you are the first in the eye: or you commit the fault, or have willingly permitted it, and must suffer for it; so perhaps you may be offered as a sacrifice to appease the multitude. But admit you were in no such danger, as I hope you are not, and So in the original. I think it should be "his opinion."