known and characteristic handwriting. The French proverbs appear to have been copied for Bacon by a Frenchman. Besides the proof afforded by identity of handwriting, these MSS. contain internal evidence that they were written by Bacon, for amongst them are rough notes for the Colours of Good and Evil-many more, in fact, than are introduced into the work itself, which was published later than any date on these papers, and in which the corrupt Latin of these notes is seen to have been corrected, and the ideas modified or expanded. (See folio 122, 1319-1381, and folio 128, 1465–1478.) In folio 118 are a few texts and reflections on Hope, which reappear in the Meditationes Sacræ de Spe Terrestri, and a few entries which occur in the earliest essays, which, together with the Colours and the Meditations, were published in 1597, one year later than the date of the Promus. There are also scattered about in the Promus notes which only appear for the first time in the Advancement of Learning, published 1623, and others of a more personal character, such as No. 1165, Law at Twickenham for y Mery Tales, and some courteous forms of endings to letters, one of which is almost the same as occurs in a private letter to Lord Burghley in 1590; whilst another (No. 115) presents a still closer likeness to the conclusion of a later letter to Burghley which is extant. The reasons which have led to a conviction that these notes are not only curious and quaint, but of extreme interest to most literary persons, are as follow. In connection with a work in which the present writer has been for some years engaged, with a view to proving, from internal evidence, Bacon's authorship of the plays known as Shakespeare's, attention became directed to these manuscripts of Bacon by some remarks upon them made by Mr. Spedding in his Works of Bacon. From the ' Permission is given by Mr. Maude Thompson, keeper of MSS. at the British Museum, to quote his authority in support of this assertion. few specimens which are there given it appeared probable that in these notes corroborative evidence would be found to support some of the points which it was desired to establish, and as the subject then in hand was the vocabulary and style of Bacon, there was a hope of gleaning, perhaps, a few additional facts and evidences from this new field of inquiry. This hope has been fulfilled to a degree beyond expectation, and as the notes-whatever may be the views taken of the commentary upon them-possess in themselves a value which must be recognised by all the students of language, it has been thought desirable to publish them in a separate form, instead of incorporating them, as was originally intended, with a larger work. The group of manuscripts have been distinguished by Mr. Spedding by the name of the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, a title which forms the heading to one sheet. The thought which led Bacon to use the word Promus in designating this collection of notes is probably to be found in one of the notes itself,' Promus majus quam condus. This motto aptly describes the collection and the use to which, it is believed, Bacon put it. It was, as Mr. Spedding observes, especially of one of the papers (folio 144), a rudiment or fragment of one those collections, by way of provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech and readiness of invention,' which Bacon recommends in the Advancement of Learning, and more at large in the De Augmentis (vi. 3) under the head of Rhetoric,' and which he says, 'appeareth to be of two In the Advancement of Learning, vii. 2, we find the following passage: To resume, then, and pursue first private and self good, we will divide it into good active and good passive; for this difference of good, not unlike that which amongst the Romans was expressed in the familiar or household terms of "promus" and "condus," is formed also in all things, and is best disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures: the one, to preserve or continue themselves, and the other, to multiply and propagate themselves; whereof the latter, which is active, and as it were the "promus," seems to be the stronger and the more worthy; and the former, which is passive, and as it were the " condus," seems to be inferior.' sorts the one in resemblance to a shop of pieces unmadeup, the other to a shop of things ready-made-up, both to be applied to that which is frequent and most in request. The former of these I will call antitheta, and the latter formula.1 The Promus, then, was Bacon's shop or storehouse, from which he would draw forth things new and oldturning, twisting, expanding, modifying, changing them, with that nimbleness' of mind, that 'aptness to perceive analogies,' which he notes as being necessary to the inventor of aphorisms, and which, elsewhere, he speaks of decidedly, though modestly, as gifts with which he felt himself to be specially endowed. It was a storehouse also of pithy and suggestive sayings, of new, graceful, or quaint terms of expression, of repartee, little bright ideas jotted down as they occurred, and which were to reappear, 'made-up,' variegated, intensified, and indefinitely multiplied, as they radiated from that wonderful brayne cut with many facets.' 2 In order to gain a general idea of these notes we cannot do better than read Mr. Spedding's account of them: 3 All the editions of Bacon's works contain a small collection of Latin sentences collected from the Mimi of Publius Syrus, under the title of Ornamenta Rationalia, followed by a larger collection of English sentences selected from Bacon's own writings. The history of them is shortly this. Dr. Tenison found in three several lists of Bacon's unpublished papers the title Ornamenta Rationalia. . . . But no part of it was to be found among the MSS. transmitted to his care, and he retained only a general remembrance of its quality, namely, that "it consisted of divers short sayings, aptly and smartly expressed, and containing in them much of good sense in a little room, and that it was gathered partly out of his I See Bacon's Works, Spedding, vol. vii. 207–8. Bacon's Works, Spedding, vol. vii. 189. own store and partly from the ancients. Considering himself to blame, however, for not having preserved it, he held himself obliged, in some sort, and as he was able, to supply the defect; and accordingly made a collection on the same plan, and printed it in the Baconiana with the following title- Ornamenta Rationalia, a supply (by the publisher) of certain weighty and elegant sentences, some made, others collected, by the Lord Bacon, and by him put under the above said title, and at present not to be found."" 6 'Whatever,' resumes Mr. Spedding, may be the value of these collections, they have clearly no right to appear amongst the works of Bacon. . . . But there is a MS. in the British Museum, written in Bacon's own hand, and entitled Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, which (though made in his early life for his own use, and not intended for preservation in that shape) contains many things which might have formed part of such a collection as Tenison describes; and the place of the lost Ornamenta Rationalia will perhaps be most properly supplied by an account of it. A date at the top of the first page shows that it was begun on December 5, 1594, the commencement of the Christmas vacation. It consists of single sentences, set down one after the other without any marks between, or any notes of reference and explanation. This collection (which fills more than forty quarto pages) is of the most miscellaneous character, and seems by various marks in the MS. to have been afterwards digested into other collections which are lost. The first few pages are filled chiefly, though not exclusively, with forms of expression applicable to such matters as a man might have occasion to touch in conversation; neatly turned sentences describing personal characters or qualities; forms of compliment, application, excuse, repartee, &c. These are apparently of his own invention, and may have been suggested by his own experience and occasions. But interspersed among them are apophthegms, proverbs, verses out of the Bible, and lines out of the Latin poets, all set down without any order or apparent connection of the subject, as if he had been trying to remember as many notable phrases as he could, out of his various reading and observation, and setting them down just as they happened to present themselves. 'As we advance, the collection becomes less miscellaneous, as if his memory had been ranging within a smaller circumference. In one place, for instance, we find a cluster of quotations from the Bible, following one another with a regularity which may be best explained by supposing that he had just been reading the Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, and then the Gospels and Epistles (or perhaps some commentary on them), regularly through. The quotations are in Latin, and most of them agree exactly with the Vulgate, but not all. . . . Passing this Scripture series we again come into a collection of a very miscellaneous character: proverbs, French, Spanish, Italian, English; sentences out of Erasmus's Adagia; verses from the Epistles, Gospels, Psalms, Proverbs of Solomon; lines from Seneca, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, succeed each other according to some law which, in the absence of all notes or other indications to mark the connection between the several entries, the particular application of each, or the change from one subject to another, there is no hope of discovering, though in some places several occur together, which may be perceived by those who remember the struggling fortune and uncertain prospects of the writer in those years, together with the great design he was meditating, to be connected by a common sentiment.' Mr. Spedding says further: 'I have been thus particular in describing it (the Promus) because it is chiefly interesting as an illustration of Bacon's manner of working. There is not much in it of his own. The collection is from books which were then in every scholar's hands, and the selected passages, standing, as they do, without any comment to show what he found in them, or how he |