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aimed at a classification of the works more systematic, as it seems to me, than the case admits, and has thus given to some of the smaller pieces a prominence which does not belong to them.

In the edition of which the first volume is here offered to the public, a new arrangement has been attempted; the nature and grounds of which I must now explain.

When a man publishes a book, or writes a letter, or delivers a speech, it is always with a view to some particular audience by whom he means to be understood without the help of a commentator. Giving them credit for such knowledge and capacity as they are presumably furnished with, he himself supplies what else is necessary to make his meaning clear; so that any additional illustrations would be to that audience more of a hindrance than a help. If however his works live into another generation or travel out of the circle to which they were originally addressed, the conditions are changed. He now addresses a new set of readers, differently prepared, knowing much which the others were ignorant of, ignorant of much which the others knew, and on both accounts requiring explanations and elucidations of many things which to the original audience were sufficiently intelligible. These it is the proper business of an editor to supply.

This consideration suggested to me, when consulted about a new edition of Bacon, the expediency

of arranging his works with reference-not to subject, size, language, or form - but to the different classes of readers whose requirements he had in view when he composed them. So classified, they will be found to fall naturally into three principal divisions. First, we have his works in philosophy and general literature; addressed to mankind at large, and meant to be intelligible to educated men of all generations. Secondly, we have his works on legal subjects; addressed to lawyers, and presuming in the reader such knowledge as belongs to the profession. Thirdly, we have letters, speeches, charges, tracts, state-papers, and other writings of business; relating to subjects so various as to defy classification, but agreeing in this they were all addressed to particular persons or bodies, had reference to particular occasions, assumed in the persons addressed a knowledge of the circumstances of the time, and cannot be rightly understood except in relation to those circumstances. In this division every thing will find a place which does not naturally fall into one of the two former; and thus we have the whole body of Bacon's works arranged in three sufficiently distinguishable classes, which may be called for shortness, 1st, The PHILOSOPHICAL and LITERARY; 2nd, The PROFESSIONAL ; and 3rd, The OCCASIONAL.

In each of these there is work for an editor to do, but the help he can render differs in the several cases both in nature and amount, and requires qual

ifications differing accordingly. To understand and illustrate the Philosophical works in their relation to this age, a man must be not only well read in the history of science both ancient and modern, but himself a man of science, capable of handling scientific questions. To produce a correct text of the Professional works and supply what other help may be necessary for a modern student, a man must be a lawyer. To explain and interpret the Occasional works, and set them forth in a shape convenient for readers of the present generation, a man must have leisure to make himself acquainted by tedious and minute researches among the forgotten records of the time with the circumstances in which they were written. Now as it would not be easy to find any one man in whom these several qualifications meet, it was thought expedient to keep the three divisions separate, assigning each to a separate editor. It was agreed accordingly that the Philosophical works should be undertaken by Mr. Robert Leslie Ellis; the Professional works by Mr. Douglas Denon Heath; the Occasional and the Literary works by me; each division to be made complete in itself, and each editor to be solely responsible for his own part of the work.

It was con

Such was our original arrangement. cluded in the autumn of 1847; and Mr. Ellis, whose part was to come first, had already advanced so far that he expected to have it ready for the press with

in another half year, when unhappily about the end of 1849 he was seized with a rheumatic fever, which left him in a condition of body quite incompatible with a labour of that kind. At which time, though the greater portion was in fact done, he did not consider any of it fit to be published as it was; many blanks having been left to be filled up, and some doubtful notes to be corrected, in that general revision which the whole was to have undergone before any part were printed. It was long before he could finally resolve to abandon his task. As soon as he had done so, he handed all his papers over to me, with permission to do with them whatever I thought best. And hence it is that my name appears in connexion with the Philosophical works; with hich otherwise I should not have presumed to meddle.

As soon however as I had arranged and examined his papers, I felt that, however imperfect they might be compared with his own ideal and with what he would himself have made them, they must on no account be touched by anybody else; for that if any other man were allowed to make alterations in them, without notice, according to his own judgment, the reader could have no means of knowing when he was reading the words of Mr. Ellis and when those of his editor, and so their peculiar value would be lost. Perfect or imperfect, it was clear to me that they must be kept as he left them, clear of all alien infusion; and

this I

not knowing of any one who was likely to take so much interest or able to spend so much time in the matter as myself, I proposed to take his part into my own hands and edit it; provided only that I might print his notes and prefaces exactly as I found them ; explaining the circumstances which had prevented him from completing or revising them, but making no alteration whatever (unless of errors obviously accidental which I might perhaps meet with in verifying any of the numerous references and quotations) without his express sanction. That the text should be carefully printed from the proper authorities, and all the bibliographical information supplied which was necessary to make the edition in that respect complete, thought I might venture to promise. And although I could not undertake to meddle with purely scientific questions, for which I have neither the acquirements nor the faculties requisite, or to bring any stores of learning, ancient or modern, to bear upon the various subjects of inquiry, although I had no means, I say, of supplying what he had left to be done in those departments, and must therefore be content to leave the work so far imperfect, yet in all matters which lay within my compass I promised to do my best to complete the illustration and explanation of the text; adding where I had anything to add, objecting where I had anything to object, but always distinguishing as my own whatever was not his.

To this proposal he agreed, as the best course that

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