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tion) for the whole; so that the ocean, beneath the horizon of which the evening star sinks, may be well described by the poet as her father's grave.'

I would not indeed have any one remember this explanation when he is reading the poem, for it is fatal to the poetic effect; but the coincidence of the expression with the mythic tradition is curious; and might almost make one think that Tennyson, while merely following the eternal and universal instincts of the human imagination and feeling, had unconsciously reproduced the very image out of which the tradition originally grew.

In Dr. Rawley's list of works composed by Bacon during the last five years of his life, he mentions "his revising of his book De Sapientia Veterum." And as he professes to give them in the order in which they were written, and this comes near the end, I suppose he does not allude merely to the three fables introduced into the second book of the De Augmentis, which was published in 1623; but to some further revision of the whole previous to the reprinting of the work among the Opera Moralia et Civilia. I have therefore treated that posthumous edition (which varies in a few, though very few, passages from the original of 1609), as the latest authority for the text. But as it is not so carefully printed as the other, I have collated the two throughout, and noticed the variations. I have also kept the title-page of the original edition; and I have followed modern editors making the interpretation of each fable commence ew paragraph.

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FRANCISCI BACONI

EQUITIS AURATI,

PROCURATORIS SECUNDI JACOBI REGIS MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ,

DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM

LIBER,

AD INCLYTAM ACADEMIAM CANTABRIGIENSEM.

LONDINI,

Excudebat ROBERTUS BAKERUS, Serenissimæ Regiæ Majestatis

Typographus.

ANNO 1609.

ILLUSTRISSIMO VIRO

COMITI SARISBURIENSI,

SUMMO THESAURARIO ANGLIE, ET CANCELLARIO ACADEMIE

CANTABRIGIENSIS.

QUE Academiæ Cantabrigiensi dicantur, tibi jure Cancellarii accrescunt: quæ autem a me proficisci possunt omnia, tibi nomine proprio debentur. Illud magis videndum, num ista, ut tibi debita, ita etiam te digna sint. Atque quod in illis minimum est (ingenium authoris) id, propter tuum propensum in me animum, nihil officiet; cætera dedecori non erunt. Nam si tempus spectetur; antiquitas primæva summam venerationem habet: Si docendi forma; Parabola veluti arca quædam est, in qua pretiosissima quæque scientiarum reponi consueverunt: Si operis materia; ea philosophia est, vitæ scilicet atque animæ humanæ decus secundum. Fas sit enim dixisse, quamvis philosophia, seculo nostro veluti per senium repuerascens, adolescentibus et fere pueris relinquatur; eam tamen omnium rerum, post religionem, gravissimam atque natura humana maxime dignam esse plane censeo. Etiam politica, in qua te mirabilem præbes, et facultate et

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