cribed in print (though upon what ground or upon whose authority nobody knows) to another hand; and popular opinion in such a matter is generally carried by the first claim. In the year 1651 a small 12mo volume appeared, with the following title:-" The Felicity of Queen Elizabeth and her times, with other things, by the Right Honourable Francis Lord Bacon, Viscount St. Alban;" printed by T. Newcomb for George Latham; and containing among some other short pieces, all either by Bacon or immediately relating to him,1 ore entitled "The Lord Treasurer Burleigh, his advice to Queen Elizabeth in matters of Religion and State;" which is this same tract, only printed incorrectly from an incorrect manuscript. It has been since reprinted in Somers's Collection (with some additional errors, arising apparently from the editor's endeavours to make sense of some corrupt passages), and has been quoted and referred to by our best writers as a work of Burghley's. But I am not aware that the question of the authorship has ever been examined, and I conceive that it has been given to Burghley on the sole evidence of that ancnymous volume, the publisher of which says not a word in his preface as to the character or condition of the manuscripts from which he made his book, or how he came by them.

Now I need hardly say that on a question of authorship, the evidence of a book printed nearly seventy years after, of the contents of which no account is given, and for which no editor makes himself responsible, especially if the name of the imputed author be one which will help to advertise the book,-is worth nothing. Setting this evidence aside therefore, I have taken some pains to ascertain whether this tract was ever ascribed to Burghley in his own time, or near it. But I find no such thing. This Harleian MS. (which is probably either the original transcript or a contemporary copy) is anonymous. The well-known collector Ralph Starkey, whose authority upon such a point would have been of some value, had a copy of it, but did not know whom it was by: for in a list in his own handwriting of MSS. in his possession (Harl. MSS. 537, 84), I find the following entry:-"A discourse written by unto Queen

1 The contents are

1. The Felicity of Queen Elizabeth (an English translation of Bacon's Latin tract).

2. The Apology of Francis Bacon in certain imputations concerning the late Earl of Essex.

3. A Letter of the Lord Bacon's to Prince Charles (the letter accompanying the History of Henry VII.).

4. The present tract.

5. Some Verses addressed to Lord Bacon, then falling from favour.

6. A Letter to Bishop Andrews (the letter accompanying the Dialogue on a Holy War).

7. Some Latin Verses on Lord Bacon's death.

Elizabeth, advising her Majesty to hold a more strict course against the Papists of England; yet to frame the oath of allegiance to a more milder sort, and to oppose herself to the King of Spain. Ano —;" which is an exact description of its contents. And in Harl. MSS. 35, 412, I find a copy of the tract itself in Ralph Starkey's hand, with the same title, and still without any name. It is true that I have seen many other copies, in which it is attributed to Burghley; but they are all of much later date, and some of them bear evidence on their very face that the name had been assigned upon vague conjecture by some one quite ignorant of the matter. For instance, there is a copy in the Cambridge University Library (L. 1. iii. 10), and another in the Inner Temple, headed, “An excellent treatise against Jesuits and Recusants, written by the Earl of Salisbury, or rather the Lord Treasurer Burghley, to Queen Elizabeth." And there is one in the Lansdowne collection (213, 1) in which it is described as "an excellent treatise against Papists, by Burghley, afterwards Earl of Salisbury." I suppose the fact was that in the later days of Charles I., when popular rage ran strong against priests and Jesuits, this paper was hunted out and circulated widely in manuscript; and being evidently the advice of a statesman to Queen Elizabeth, was set down, to give it the greater authority, as the production of her most famous councillor ;-only the difference between the father and the son having worn out of memory, some confusion was made between Burghley and Salisbury. The evidence of these manuscripts therefore, as well as that of the editor, whoever he was, of the printed volume of 1651, of the editor of Somers's Tracts, and of all subsequent writers who have quoted the paper as Burghley's, (there being no reason to suppose that any of them had any other or better ground than one of the said MSS. to go upon,) I reject as worth literally nothing.

External evidence therefore for ascribing the tract to Burghley, there is in my judgment none at all; and when I turn to consider the internal evidence, I find it impossible to believe that he had anything to do with it. It is evidently the production of some young unauthorized adviser, who feels it necessary to offer an apology for volunteering his advice; whereas Burghley had now been for more than twenty-five years the Queen's principal minister and adviser, and must have been consulted over and over again upon the questions to which this paper refers. Moreover many of Burghley's memorials of advice have been preserved, and they have no resemblance to this in form, style, method, or character.

Now if Burghley's claim be set aside, Bacon's may seem (on the strength of Tenison's list and of the fact that this paper had somehow got mixed up with his writings—a fact to which the contents of the

volume of 1651 equally bear witness) to stand next. And though I am far from thinking the evidence conclusive, yet I do think it sufficient to justify the insertion of the paper here as being possibly and not improbably his composition. Certainly the tone and manner of it suits his relation to the Queen perfectly well; and we know that, not many years after, she used to encourage him to deliver his mind on such matters. The opinions also are in all respects such as might have been expected from him, and the style, though it has some small peculiarities that strike me as alien,2 is in its larger and more general features very like his; so much so indeed that when I first met with it as an anonymous paper (having at that time no reason for supposing it to be in any way connected with him), I was so struck with the resemblance that I took a copy of it on speculation, thinking that it might probably turn out to be his. But these are points upon which it is fit the reader should judge for himself. If Bacon was really the author of it, it is one of the most interesting of his occasional writings; if not, it will at least contribute to the secondary object of this work, which is to present a picture of the time as seen by those who lived in it. Besides, the paper is valuable enough, whoever were the author, to be worth printing correctly; which it has not been either in Somers or in the volume of 1651.3 The manuscript from which I have taken it (Harl. 6867, 42) has no title, address, date, docket, or other explanation. It is fairly written, on bad paper of the quarto size, in the hand (I should think) of a copyist or secretary, and looks like an original paper rather than a collector's copy. But, though not quite accurate, it shows no traces of correction. It may be described as a letter of advice to Queen Elizabeth touching the course to be taken for protection against her enemies at home and abroad; and was probably written about the end of 1584,-certainly before the death of Pope Gregory XIII., which took place on the 10th of April, 1585.

1 "Thus have I played the ignorant statesman; which I do to nobody but your Lordship, except Î do it to the Queen sometimes, when she trains me on.”—Letter to Essex, 1598.

2 It is not to be forgotten however that it was written carlier by four or five years than any formal composition of his that has come down to us, and therefore it would naturally exhibit some peculiarities of manner not to be found in his other writings. All young writers begin by affecting the approved style of the day; as they find their own strength, they mould their own style.

3 It may be worth while to add that this is not the only one of Bacon's writings (if Bacon's it be) which has been attributed to Burghley. Strype (Annals of the Reformation, vol. vi. p. 49), having occasion to quote an anonymous manuscript which he found in the Cotton Library, entitled "Proceedings between England and Spain," says he "verily believes it was of the Lord Burleigh's own composing." It is in fact a portion of Bacon's 'Observations on a Libel,' printed by Rawley in the 'Resuscitatio;' and one of the best-known of his occasional works. Had it not been so, how natural for any one possessing a copy of the paper to write "By Lord Burghley" on the titlepage, and for any publisher to print it!

TO THE QUEEN.

Most Gracious Sovereign

and most worthy to be a Sovereign.

Care, one of the natural and true-bred children of unfeigned affection, awaked with these late wicked and barbarous attempts, would needs exercise my pen to your sacred Majesty, encouraging me not only therewith that it would take the whole faults of boldness upon itself, but also that even the words should not doubt to appear in your Highness's presence in their kindly rudeness, for that if your Majesty with your voice did vouchsafe to read them, that very reading would give them the grace of eloquence.

Therefore laying aside all self-guilty conceits of ignorance (knowing that the sun is not angry with the well-meaning astronomers though they hap to miss his course), I will with the same sincerity display my humble conceits, wherewith my life shall be among the foremost to defend the blessing which God in you hath bestowed upon us.

As far then (dread Sovereign) as I may judge, the happiness of your present estate can no way be encumbered but by your strong factious subjects and your foreign enemies. Your strong factious subjects be the Papists: strong I account them, because both in number they are (at the least) able to make a great army, and by their mutual confidence and intelligence may soon bring to pass an uniting: factious I call them, because they are discontented ;-of whom in all reason of state your Majesty must determine, if you suffer them to be strong, to make them better content, or if you will discontent them, to make them weaker: for

what the mixture of strength and discontentment engender, needs no syllogisms to prove."

To suffer them to be strong, with hope that with reason they will be contented, carries with it in my opinion but a fair enamelling of a terrible danger.

For first, man's nature being not only to strive against a present smart but to revenge a passed injury, though they be never so well contented hereafter, what can be a sufficient pledge to your Majesty but that, when opportunity shall flatter them, they will remember not the after-slacking but the former binding? so 1 blesse in MS.

much the more as they will imagine this relenting rather to proceed from fear than favour; which is the poison of all government, when the subject thinks the prince doth anything for fear. And therefore the Romans would rather abide the uttermost extremities than by their subjects to be brought to any conditions.

Again, to make them contented absolutely, I do not see how your Majesty either in conscience will do it or in policy may do it, since you cannot throughly content them but that you must of necessity throughly discontent your faithful subjects: and to fasten a reconciled love with the loosing of a certain, is to build houses with the sale of lands. So much the more in that your Majesty is embarked into the Protestant cause, as in many respects by your Majesty it cannot with any safety be abandoned, they having been so long the only instruments both of your counsel and power.

To make them half-content, half-discontent, methinks carries with it as deceitful a shadow of reason, since there is no pain so small but if we can we will cast it off; and no man loves one the better for giving him a bastinado with a little cudgel.

But the course of the most wise, most politic, and best governed estates hath ever been either to make an assuredness of friendship or to take away all power of enmity.

Yet here must I distinguish between discontentment and despair for it sufficeth to weaken the discontented; but there is no way but to kill the desperate, which in such a number as they are, were as hard and difficult as impious and ungodly.

And therefore though they must be discontented, yet I would not have them desperate: for among many desperate men, it is like some one will bring forth a desperate attempt.

Therefore considering that the urging of the oath must needs. in some degree beget despair, since therein he must either think as without the especial grace of God he cannot think, or else become a traitor (which before some act done seems somewhat hard), I humbly submit this to your excellent consideration, whether, with as much security of your Majesty's person and state, and more satisfaction of them, it were not better to frame the oath to this sense that whosoever would not bear arms against all foreign princes, and namely the Pope, that should any way invade your Majesty's dominions, he should be a traitor.

For hereof this commodity would ensue; that those Papists