nected with Physical Science, is his speculation concerning the well-known plant called misselto. He notices the popular belief of his own time, that it is a true plant, propagated by its berries, which are dropped by birds on the boughs of other trees; a fact alluded to in a Latin proverb applicable to those who create future dangers for themselves; for, the ancient Romans prepared birdlime for catching birds from the misselto thus propagated. Now this account of the plant, which has long since been universally admitted, Bacon rejects as a vulgar error, and insists on it that misselto is not a true plant, but an excrescence from the tree it grows on! Nothing can be conceived more remote from the spirit of the Baconian philosophy than thus to substitute a random conjecture for careful investigation and that, too, when there actually did exist a prevailing belief, and it was obviously the first step to inquire whether this were or were not well-founded.

The matter itself, indeed, is of little importance; but it indicates, no less than if it were of the greatest, a deficiency in the application of his own principles. For, one who takes deliberate aim at some object, and misses it, is proved to be a bad marksman, whether the object itself be insignificant or not.

But rarely, if ever, do we find any such failures in Bacon's speculations on human character and conduct. It was there that his strength lay; and in that department of philosophy it may safely be said that he had few to equal, and none to excel him.

In several instances I have treated of subjects respecting which erroneous opinions are current; and I have, in other works, sometimes assigned this as a reason for touching on those subjects. Hence, it has been inferred by more than one critic, that I must be at variance with the generality of mankind in most of my opinions; or, at least, must wish to appear so, for the sake of claiming credit for originality. But there seems no good ground for such an inference. A man might, conceivably, agree with the generality on nineteen points out of twenty,

and yet might see reason, when publishing is in question, to treat of the one point, and say little or nothing of the nineteen. For it is evidently more important to clear up difficulties, and correct mistakes, than merely to remind men of what they knew before, and prove to them what they already believe. He may be convinced that the sun is brighter than the moon, and that three and two make five, without seeing any need to proclaim to the world his conviction. There is no necessity to write a book to prove that liberty is preferable to slavery, and that intemperance is noxious to health. But when errors are afloat on any important question, and especially when they are plausibly defended, the work of refuting them, and of maintaining truths that have been overlooked, is surely more serviceable to the public than the inculcation and repetition of what all men admit.

I have inserted in the Annotations, extracts from several works of various authors, including some of my own. If I had, instead of this, merely given references, this would have been to expect every reader either to be perfectly familiar with all the works referred to, or at least to have them at hand, and to take the trouble to look out and peruse each passage. This is what I could not reasonably calculate on. And I had seen lamentable instances of an author's being imperfectly understood, and sometimes grievously misunderstood, by many of his readers who were not so familiar as he had expected them to be with his previous works, and with others which had been alluded to, but not cited.

Cavillers, however-persons of the description noticed in the Annotations on Essay xlvii.—will be likely to complain of the reprinting of passages from other books. And if the opposite course had been adopted, of merely giving references to them, the same cavillers would probably have complained that the reader of this volume was expected to sit down to the study of it with ten or twelve other volumes on the table before him, and to look out each of the passages referred to. Again, if an

author, in making an extract from some work of his own, gives a reference to it, the caviller will represent him as seeking to puff his own productions: if he omit to give the reference, the same caviller will charge him with seeking to pass off as new what had been published before. For you must think this,

look you, that the worm will do his kind."

I chose, then, rather to incur the blame of the fault-if it be one-of encumbering the volume with two or three additional sheets, which, to some readers, may be superfluous, than to run the risk of misleading or needlessly offending many others, by omitting, and merely referring to, something essential to the argument, which they might not have seen, or might not distinctly remember.

The passages thus selected are, of course, but a few out of many in which the subjects of these Essays have been treated of. I have inserted those that seemed most to the purpose, without expecting that all persons should agree in approving the selections made. But any one who thinks that some passages from other writers contain better illustrations than those here given, has only to edit the Essays himself with such extracts as he prefers.

1 Antony and Cleopatra, Act v.