Page images
PDF
EPUB

APOPHTHEGMS

NEW AND OLD.

PREFACE.

BACON's collection of Apophthegms, though a sick man's task, ought not to be regarded as a work merely of amusement; still less as a jest-book. It was meant for a contribution, though a slight one, towards the supply of what he had long considered as a desideratum in literature. In the Advancement of Learning he had mentioned Apophthegms with respect, along with Orations and Letters, as one of the appendices to Civil History; regretting the loss of Cæsar's collection; "for as for those which are collected by others (he said) either I have no taste in such matters, or their choice hath not been happy."1 This was in 1605. In revising and enlarging that treatise in 1623, he had spoken of their use and worth rather more fully. "They serve (he said) not for pleasure only and ornament, but also for action and business; being, as one called them, mucrones verborum, — speeches with a point or edge, whereby knots in business are pierced and severed. And as former occasions are continually recurring, that which served once will often serve again, either produced as a man's own or cited as of ancient authority. Nor can there be any doubt of the utility in business of a thing which Cæsar the Dictator thought worthy of his own labour; whose

1 Advancement of Learning, Book II. ¶ 9.

collection I wish had been preserved; for as for any others that we have in this kind, but little judgment has in my opinion been used in the selection." Of this serious use of apophthems Bacon himself had had long experience, having been all his life a great citer of them; and in the autumn of 1624, when he was recovering from a severe illness, he emploved himself in dictating from memory a number that occurred to him as worth setting down.

The fate of this collection has been singular. The original edition (a very mail octavo volume dated 1625, but published about the middle of December 1624) consisted of 250 apophthegms, with a short preface. Of this volume Dr. Rawiey, in the first eiition of the Resuscitatio (1657), makes no mention whatever, either where he enumerates the works composed during the last five years of Bacon's life, or in the perfect list of his Lordship's true works both in English and Latin at the end of the volume. And his words, taken strictly, would seem to imply (since

[ocr errors]

1 Neque apophthegmata psa id felectationem et ornatum tantum prosunt, sed ad res gerendas etiam et usus civiles, Sunt enim ut debat ille veluti secures aut macrimes verborum; qui rerum negotiorum OKIOS acumine quodam secant et penetrant; occasiones tutem redeunt nichern. et quod olim erat commodum rursus adhiberi et prodesse potest, sve juis ea tanquam sua proferat, sive tanquam vetera. Neque certe ie itate rei ad civilia dubitari potest, quam Casar Dictator pera sua onest{2nius liber utinam extaret, cum ea juæ quam habentur ao Inobis parum cum delectu congesta videantur. `— De Aug. S. 1.1 Apoptothermes new and old. Cllected by re Right Honouranie. FDITS Ferulum Viscount St. 43. L mion. Printed or Tiana Birret ind hard Whittaker, and are to be suid at the King's Head n Poni's + urcă

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

1625

A copy in Gray's Inn Library has the date 66: ut appears to be in ul the respects exactly the same.

Chamberlain to Carlton, 18 Dec. 1624. Court and Times of James I.. P 15h.

he cannot have been ignorant of its existence) that he did not acknowledge it as Bacon's. But I suppose he had either forgotten it, or did not think it important or original enough to be worth mentioning.

In 1658 there came forth a small volume, without any editor's name, under the following title: Witty Apophthegms delivered at several times and upon several occasions, by King James, King Charles, the Marquess of Worcester, Francis Lord Bacon, and Sir Thomas Moore. Collected and revised. In this volume the apophthegms attributed to Bacon are in all 184; of which 163 are copied verbatim from his own collection of 1625, and follow (with one or two slight exceptions, probably accidental) in the same order. The remaining 21, which are mostly of a very inferior character, are not added but interspersed.

In 1661 appeared a second edition, or rather a reissue, of the Resuscitatio, edited as before by Dr. Rawley, and with some additions; among which was a collection of "Apophthegms, new and old." This, though introduced without a word of preface or advertisement from editor or publisher, was so far from being a reprint of the original collection of 1625, that I do not think the editor can have had a copy of it to refer to. Of the original 280 no less than 71 are entirely omitted; 39 new ones are introduced; the order is totally changed; the text considerably altered. The alterations in the text are indeed (though I think not generally for the better) no more than might have been made by Bacon himself in revising the book. A few of the omissions also might be accounted for in the same way; but very many of the omitted ones are among the best in the volume, and such as he

« PreviousContinue »