cious opinion and meaning towards me, though at that time your leisure gave me not leave to show how I was affected therewith, yet upon every representation thereof it entereth and striketh so much more deeply into me, as both my nature and duty presseth me to return some speech of thankfulness. It must be an exceeding comfort and encouragement to me, setting forth and putting myself in way towards her Majesty's service, to encounter with an example so private and domestical of her Majesty's gracious goodness and benignity; being made good and verified in my father so far forth as it extendeth to his posterity, accepting them as commended by his service, during the non-age, as I may term it, of their own deserts. I, for my part, am well content that I take least part either of his abilities of mind or of his worldly advancements, both which he held and received, the one of the gift of God immediate, the other of her Majesty's gift yet in the loyal and earnest affection which he bare to her Majesty's service, I trust my portion shall not be with the least, nor in proportion with my youngest birth. For methinks his precedent should be a silent charge upon his blessing unto us all in our degrees, to follow him afar off, and to dedicate unto her Majesty's service both the use and spending of our lives. True it is that I must needs acknowledge myself prepared and furnished thereunto with nothing but a multitude of lacks and imperfections. But calling to mind how diversly and in what particular providence God hath declared himself to tender the estate of her Majesty's affairs, I conceive and gather hope that those whom he hath in a manner pressed for her Majesty's service, by working and imprinting in them a single and zealous mind to bestow their days therein, he will see them accordingly appointed of sufficiency convenient for the rank and standing where they shall be employed: so as under this her Majesty's blessing I trust to receive a larger1 allowance of God's graces. As I may hope for these, so I can assure and promise for my endeavour that it shall not be in fault; but what diligence can entitle me unto, that I doubt not to recover. And now seeing it hath pleased her Majesty to take knowledge of this my mind, and to vouchsafe to appropriate me unto her service, preventing any desert of mine with her princely liberality; first, [I am moved]2 humbly to beseech your Lordship to present to her Majesty my 1 longer in MS. The words no longer legible in the original. more than most humble thanks therefore, and withal having regard to mine own unworthiness to receive such favour, and to the small possibility in me to satisfy and answer what her Majesty conceiveth, I am moved to become a most humble suitor unto her Majesty, that this benefit also may be affixed unto the other; which is, that if there appear not in me such towardness of service as it may be her Majesty doth benignly value me and assess me at, by reason of my sundry wants, and the disadvantage of my nature, being unapt to lay forth the simple store of these inferior gifts which God hath allotted unto me most to view; yet that it would please her excellent Majesty not to account my thankfulness less for that my disability is great to show it; but to sustain me in her Majesty's gracious opinion, whereupon I only rest, and not upon expectation of any desert to proceed from myself towards the contentment thereof. But if it shall please God to send forth an occasion whereby my faithful affection may be tried, I trust it shall save me labour for ever making more protestation of it after. In the meantime, howsoever it be not made known to her Majesty, yet God knoweth it through the daily solicitations wherewith I address myself unto him in unfeigned prayer for the multiplying of her Majesty's prosperities. To your Lordship, whose recommendation, I know right well, hath been material to advance her Majesty's good opinion of me, I can be but a bounden servant. So much may I safely promise and purpose to be, seeing public and private bonds vary not, but that my service to God, her Majesty, and your Lordship draw in a line. I wish therefore to show it with as good proof, as I say it with good faith. From G. Inn, this 18 Oct. 1580. Your lordship's dutiful and bounden nephew, 3. From this time we have no further news of Francis Bacon till the 15th of April, 15823; but as we find that he was then residing as before in Gray's Inn, where he was admitted Utter Barrister on the 27th of June following, we may suppose that he had been going on 1 in in MS. 2 entertainment in MS. 3 Birch's Memorials, i. 22. "Mr. Francis Bacon, Mr. Edward Morrison, Mr. Roger Wilbraham, and Mr. Lawrence Washington, utter barristers at this pension." 4 See Order Book, under date 27 June, Ao R. xxivo. quietly with his legal studies. His correspondence with his brother, who was travelling and gathering political intelligence on the Continent, would at the same time naturally keep up his interest in foreign affairs; and if that paper of notes concerning "The State of Europe," which was printed as his in the supplement to Stephens's second collection in 1734, reprinted by Mallet in 1760, and has been placed at the beginning of his political writings in all editions since 1763, be really of his composition, this is the period of his life to which it belongs. I must confess, however, that I am not satisfied with the evidence or authority upon which it appears to have been ascribed to him. Stephens unfortunately did not live to superintend the publication of his collection. The letters and papers contained in the first 231 pages (the volume consists of 515) had been committed by him to the press before his last illness, and he had written a preface and an introductory memoir. The rest were selected from his papers under the superintendence of his friend John Locker, and with this addition (which I have called the supplement) the whole volume was published after his death by Mary Stephens, the widow. The notes on the state of Europe are in the supplement. Of the collection generally, Stephens in his preface gives the following account : : Having many years past transcribed from the originals several letters and memoirs of the Lord Bacon, which had never been made public, and disposed them with others in a series of time, I then engaged myself to make a supplement thereto, if I might be obliged with other of his Lordship's genuine writings. And to that end a gentleman, long since deceased, gave me the opportunity of copying some other of his Lordship's genuine letters which had been a part of the former collection: but not having a sufficient number, and being soon concerned in affairs of another nature, I laid aside all thoughts of troubling myself or others in the same kind, till the Right Honourable the Earl of Oxford was pleased to put into my hands some neglected manuscripts and loose papers, to see whether any of the Lord Bacon's compositions lay concealed there, that were fit to be published. Upon the perusal I found some of them written and others amended with his Lordship's own hand, and believed that all of them had been in possession of Dr. Rawley, his Lordship's chaplain, and faithful editor of many of his works. I found that several of the treatises had been published by him, and that others, certainly genuine, which had not, were fit to be transcribed, and so preserved, if not divulged."-Preface, p. iii. Now I have little doubt that this paper on the state of Europe was among those manuscripts or loose papers of which Stephens here speaks; for the editor of the supplementary pieces informs us that they were "added from originals" found among Stephens's papers; and the original of this tract, having no doubt been returned to Lord Oxford, is now among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. I do not find however that Stephens had left any note of his opinion or the grounds of it concerning the authorship of this particular paper; and, whatever his opinion may have been, it is probable that all the evidence upon which it rested is as accessible to us as it was to him. To me this evidence does not appear strong enough to justify an editor in printing the tract as an undoubted work of Bacon's. The Harleian MS. is a copy in an old hand, probably contemporary, —but not Francis Bacon's. Blank spaces have been left here and there by the transcriber, as if for words which he could not decipher; and these words have been filled in by another hand,-but neither does this hand resemble Francis Bacon's. A few sentences have been inserted afterwards by the same hand, and two by another, which is very like Anthony Bacon's; none in Francis's. The blanks have all been filled up, but no words have been corrected, though it is obvious that in some places they stand in need of correction. Certain allusions to events then passing (which will be pointed out in their place) prove that the original paper was written, or at least completed, in the summer of 1582, at which time Francis Bacon was studying law in Gray's Inn, while Anthony was travelling in France in search of political intelligence, and was in close correspondence with Nicholas Faunt, a secretary of Sir Francis Walsingham's, who had spent the previous year in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the north of Italy, on the same errand; and was now living about the English court, studying affairs at home, and collecting and arranging the observations which he had made abroad, “having already recovered all his writings and books which he had left behind him in Italy and at Frankfort." (See Birch's Memoirs, i. 24.) And it is to be remembered that if this paper belonged to Anthony Bacon, it would naturally descend at his death to Francis, and so remain among his manuscripts, where it is supposed to have been found. Thus it appears that the external evidence justifies no inference as to the authorship, and the only question is, whether the style can be considered as conclusive. To me it certainly is not. But as this is a point upon which the reader should be allowed to judge for himself, and as the paper is interesting in itself and historically valuable and has always passed for Bacon's, it is here printed from the original, though (to distinguish it from his undoubted compositions) in a smaller type.1 1 It is of the less importance to ascertain who it was that filled up the blanks left by the transcriber and added the sentences which have been inserted since the transcript was made, because there is nothing either in the substance or manner of the insertions to show that he was the author. He may have been merely com VOL. I. C Pope. Notes on the Present State of Christendom [1582].1 IN the consideration of the present estate of Christendom, depending on the inclination and qualities of the princes governors of the same; First the person of the Pope, acknowledged for supreme of the princes Catholic, may be brought forth. Gregory XIII., of the age of seventy years, by surname Boncampagno, born in Bolonia of the meanest state of the people, his father a shoemaker by occupation, of no great learning nor understanding, busy rather in practice than desirous of wars, and that rather to further the advancement of his son and his house, (a respect highly regarded of all the Popes,) than of any inclination of nature, the which yet in these years abhorreth not his secret pleasures. Howbeit, two things especially have set so sharp edge to him, whereby he doth bend himself so vehemently against religion. The one is a mere necessity, the other the solicitation of the King of Spain. For if we consider duly the estate of the present time, we shall find that he is not so much carried with the desire to suppress our religion, as driven with the fear of the downfall of his own, if in time it be not upheld and restored. The reasons be these: he seeth the King of Spain already in years, and worn with labour and troubles, that there is little hope in him of long life. And he failing, there were likely to ensue great alterations of state in all his dominions, the which should be joined with the like in religion, especially in this divided time, and in Spain already so forward as the fury of the Inquisition can scarce keep in.2 In France, the state of that church seemeth to depend on the sole3 life of the king now reigning, being of a weak constitution, full of infirmities, not likely to have long life, and quite out of hope of any issue. Of the Duke of Anjou he doth not assure himself; besides the opinion conceived of the weakness of the complexion of all that race, giving neither hope of length of life nor of children. And the next to the succession make already profession of religion, besides the increase thereof daily in France. England and Scotland are already, God be thanked, quite reformed, with the better part of Germany. And because the Queen's Majesty hath that reputation to be the defender of the true religion and faith, against her Majesty, as the head of the faithful is the drift of all their mischiefs. The King of Spain having erected in his conceit a monarchy, wherein seeking reputation in the protection of religion, this conjunction with the Pope is as necessary to him for the furtherance of his purposes, as to the Pope behoveful for the advancing of his house, and for his authority; the King of Spain having already bestowed on the Pope's son degree of title and of office, with great revenues. To encourage the Pope herein, being head paring the copy with the original and correcting it. It may be worth while how- |