This last is a point not to be overlooked; for if we would preserve those authors from neglect by the present and by coming generations, we must introduce into schools. one or more volumes presenting large and characteristic portions of the prose writings of such authors as Milton, Barrow, Jeremy Taylor, Owen Feltham and others, with critical and illustrative notes, analyses, and practical exercises upon the meaning and use of words, structure of sentences, and comparison with the usage of our own day. Thus will be afforded, not only a healthful exercise of the intellect, imagination, and taste, but a needful preparation, and disposition to explore the rich mines of the learned and profound, and varied literature of the Seventeenth Century, which, without such training in our schools, will hereafter be unexplored and unproductive, much to the detriment both of mental and moral culture.

The late Prof. Henry Reed, in showing that an expanded habit of reading is most important, as giving familiarity with different eras of our own literature, justly observes:-'There are many readers who dwell altogether in their own times, busy with what one day produces after another. This is a great error; and they are the less able to gain a rational knowledge of that very literature, because cxclusive familiarity with it gives no vision beyond, and, consequently, no capacity of comparison. Now just in proportion as one enlarges his reading into different periods, does his taste grow more enlightened, and wiser, and his judgment more assured. . . . . It is needful to lift us out of the influences which environ us, to raise us above prejudices and narrow judgments which are engendered by confinement to contemporaneous habits of opinion. . . . . The influence of the literature of different eras is reciprocal

-the earlier upon the later, and the later upon the earlier. But with regard to the elder literature, there is an agency for good in the added sentiment of reverence. The mind bows, or ought to bow to it, as to age with its crown of glory. It is as salutary as for the youthful to withdraw for a season from the companionship of their peers, and to sit at the feet of the old, listening in reverential silence. In the elder literature, the perishable has passed away, and that is left which has put on immortality.'

Bacon's Essays were more highly esteemed in the seventeenth century than they are in our own; partly because few works of that kind were then written, and partly because they possess much attractiveness of style, as compared with other writings of that period. But it must be confessed, that some Essayists of the last, and many of the present century, far outshine Bacon, as masters of an elegant, tasteful, perspicuous, and finished style, however high the former stands, even now, as a suggestive, profound, terse, and learned writer. The critical study of Bacon, in preparing the present work, has convinced the Editor that Bacon is far from being so easily understood and appreciated by the common mind, as Macauley represents him, when he says:-' It is in the Essays' alone that the mind of Bacon is brought into immediate contact with the minds of ordinary readers. There, he opens an exoteric school, and he talks to plain men in language which every body understands, about things in which every body is interested. He has thus enabled those who must otherwise have taken his merits on trust, to judge for themselves; and the great body of readers have, during several generations, acknowledged that the man who has treated with such consummate ability questions

with which they are familiar, may well be supposed to deserve all the praise bestowed on him by those who have sat in his inner school;' [referring to Lord Bacon's Philosophical Writings, and which were written by him in the Latin language, then most widely read by scholars in Europe, but since translated into English by other hands.]

It is indeed to be considered that what was plain to a mind of ordinary education in the seventeenth century, in reading Bacon's Essays, is far from plain now, to persons of like education; because many words, then understood, have become obsolete, or have changed their meaning; some customs, also, that are alluded to, and were common then, and some forms of expression that were in general use, are now obscure or unknown, except among scholars, or persons well read in the old authors of Bacon's time, or of times somewhat more recent. But Macauley seems to have overlooked these circumstances, and to have forgotten another remarkable feature of the Essays, that must have rendered them to some extent unintelligible to any but persons acquainted with the Latin language, as they largely abound in very important quotations from that language, and without an understanding of these, much of the pleasure and profit of the perusal of these Essays is unavoidably precluded. Whatever may have been the lucidness and popularity of the Essays in Bacon's day, and for perhaps a century afterwards, the subsequent changes in the usages of language, and the abundance of the Latin quotations and allusions, render indispensable, to the popular mind of our own day, a pretty large amount of critical and illustrative notes, to render considerable portions of them agreeable or profitable reading.

Hence this Edition, in which are annotated all those

Essays which are considered as decidedly the most valuable, is regarded as worthy not only of a place in the schoolroom, but in the Library of the family; for though some of the grammatical and rhetorical exercises proposed may not be needful to many readers, or may require too much thought and research, there is a large proportion of the notes that will interest all readers, being illustrative not only of ancient opinions, persons and events; but of some striking features of Bacon's own times.

In preparing this work a free use has been made of Archbishop Whately's edition, and especially of his learned and sensible 'Annotations,' some of the most valuable portions of which have been introduced; not so much because they illustrate the text; for this seems not to have been their design, but because they furnish most excellent supplementary matter; as Bacon did not intend to present an exhaustive view of the subjects treated, but only to jot down prominent and suggestive thoughts, or hints. Devey's Edition, also, has contributed important aid; but beyond these, it has been found necessary to resort to many other sources of information, so that the meaning, the force and the beauty of the Essays might be made perfectly plain to the ordinary reader.

But the greatest aid, in understanding the Author, has been derived from the Latin Edition of the Essays prepared by Lord Bacon, with the aid, it is said, of some learned contemporaries; and frequent extracts have been introduced which throw a flood of light on many passages that would otherwise remain dark or uncertain, while other extracts are adduced to show that Bacon often thought, and expressed himself, more accurately in Latin than in his vernacular. This may be

accounted for perhaps by the consideration that nearly all, if not all, his published writings were written in Latin, and for the perusal of Continental and English scholars; so that he was greatly accustomed to think and write in Latin, and had a special motive for writing it with care; and moreover he has left on record his belief that the Latin language would be read while there were any books to be read, but that modern languages would "at one time or another play the bankrupt with books;" and hence he concluded that if he did not enshrine his thoughts in a dead language, his name would not be long remembered even among his own countrymen. "Haunted by this desolating notion" (says D'Israeli), "that there was no perpetuity in English writings, he rested not till his own were translated by himself and his friends, Jonson and Hobbes, and Herbert; and often enlarging these Latin versions, some of his English compositions remain, in some respect, imperfect, when compared with those subsequent revisions in the Latin translations." Little did Bacon anticipate the wide-spread glory which the English language and its literature were destined to achieve in the progress of two centuries and a half, and the vast augmentation of the number of the intelligent readers of that language and literature, especially on our own shores.

It was first designed to print none of the Essays except those which are annotated; but, on reflection, it has been judged expedient to print them all-for several reasons. The work will then be complete, and thus be better fitted for the Library. All the essays, moreover, possess intrinsic interest and value. By printing these remaining essays a larger amount of material is afforded for the comparison of one with another, and they are