THE LITERARY AND PROFESSIONAL WORKS OF FRANCIS BACON, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England. Volume II. of the 'Literary and Professional Works': pp. 454. Boston: BROWN AND TAGGARD.
OUR first praise of this series of BACON'S works must be paid to that feature which first appeals to us through the eye--its typographical execution, by HOUGHTON, of the 'River-side Press' at Cambridge, near Boston, which may be pronounced fully equal to that of the first English printing in choice library editions of kindred standard works. The volume before us contains, with translations, BACON'S eulogium upon HENRY Prince of Wales, and the characters of JULIUS and AUGUSTUS CÆSAR--the original Latin, with translation. Also amendments and corrections inserted by BACON in a manuscript copy of CAMDEN'S Annals. Then follow, prefaced by a curious bibliographical note by Mr. SPEDDING, the 'Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral,' published from 1597 to 1625, (the year before his death,) which exhibit 'the earliest and the latest fruits of BACON'S observation in that field in which its value has been most approved by universal and undiminished popularity. These fifty-eight Essays, so wise and so eloquent in their simple yet forcible diction, occupy the greater portion of the volume, and the editor has translated the Latin quotations and added some necessary notes. There is an appendix to the essays, containing a Fragment of an Essay on Fame; reprints of the first edition of 1597, containing only ten, and of the second edition of 1612, with thirty-eight essays, and two essays attributed to BACON without authority; but, notwithstanding some similarity of style, marked by Mr. SPEDDING as spurious. There is, also, BACON'S treatise _De Sapientia Veterum_, itself a curiously learned book, the translation of which will appear in a future volume. 'BACON was one of the most remarkable men the world has ever seen. His character is a remarkable compound of the greatest nobleness and the most contemptible meanness. But of his _intellect_, no two opinions have ever been expressed. If we knew BACON only by his works, we should be bound to esteem him to be as good as he was undeniably a great man.'