dering him happily blind to difficulties as well as unhappily blind to inconvenient distinctions; a genuine kindliness to inferiors; a desire to think well of superiors; towards all a vast, serene, yet pitying philanthropy; and, lastly, a high unselfish and deliberate purpose, long adhered to in spite of many temptations, left for a time but never utterly deserted, and in the end returned to, after a chastening retribution, with such a heartfelt penitence that, in spite of all shortcomings, the human heart is drawn towards him as towards a man not only great, but also, in the main, good. THE ESSAYS OR COVNSELS CIVIL AND MORAL, OF FRANCIS LORD VERULAM, VISCOUNT St. ALBAN. Newly enlarged. LONDON, Printed by JOHN HAVILAND for at the sign of the Kings head in clxi Το The Right Honourable my very good Lord the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM his Grace, Lord High Admiral of England. EXCELLENT LORD, SALOMON 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 like to last. I do now publish my Essays, which, of all my 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 in 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 also 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, |