mind through words,(b) well knew the art of concealment by which he could cast a cloud about him so as to obscure himself from his enemies.(a) To this refined reason which, without proving the authenticity of the paradoxes, shews only that, by possibility, they may be authentic, it is sufficient to say that, as they were not published or intended for publication, it seems difficult to discover any assignable cause for this mystery. (y) CONSIDERATIONS TOUCHING THE PACIFICATION OF THE CHURCH. This was published in 1640, and there are copies in the British Museum, and at Cambridge: and a MSS. in Sloane's Collection, 23. THE TRANSLATION OF CERTAIN PSALMS. This was published in 8vo. in 1625,(d) and in the Resuscitatio. (x) HOLY WAR. This was written and published in 4to in 1623, and in 1629; and there are MSS. in the British Museum.(c) (b) See Treatise De Augmentis, b. vi. c. 1, § 11. (a) See the Art of Self-Concealment in the Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 278. See also in the same work, p. 199, upon the art of writing in cyphers. See also under Parabolical Poetry, ibid, p.121. See ante, Essay on Dissimulation, vol. i. p. 17. (y) If this had been his object, would the dove and the serpent have appeared.---T. C. G. (d) There is a copy in the Bodleian. (x) Ante iii. and xxx. (c) Sloane's, 53. Harleian 3, 267, written in 1622. A PRAYER, OR PSALM, MADE BY THE LORD BACON, CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father, from my youth up, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter. Thou, O Lord, soundest and searchest the depths and secrets of all hearts: thou acknowledgest the upright of heart: thou judgest the hypocrite: thou ponderest men's thoughts and doings as in a balance thou measurest their intentions as with a line: vanity and crooked ways cannot be hid from thee. Remember, O Lord, how thy servant hath walked before thee: remember what I have first sought, and what hath been principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assemblies: I have mourned for the divisions of thy Church: I have delighted in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This vine which thy right hand hath planted in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee, that it might have the first and the latter rain; and that it might stretch her branches to the seas and to the floods. The state and bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious in mine eyes: I have hated all cruelty and hardness of heart: I have, though in a despised weed, procured the good of all men. If any have been my enemies, I thought not of them; neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness. Thy creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found thee in thy temples. Thousands have been my sins, and ten thousands my transgressions; but thy sanctifications have remained with me, and my heart, through thy grace, hath been an unquenched coal upon thine altar. O Lord, my strength, I have since my youth met with thee in all my ways, by thy fatherly compassions, by thy comfortable chastisements, and by thy most visible providence. As thy favours have increased upon me, so have thy corrections; so as thou hast been always near me, O Lord; and ever as my worldly blessings were exalted, so secret darts from thee have pierced me; and when I have ascended before men, I have descended in humiliation before thee. And now, when I thought most of peace and honour, thy hand is heavy upon me, and hath humbled me according to thy former loving-kindness, keeping me still in thy fatherly school, not as a bastard, but as a child. Just are thy judgments upon me for my sins, which are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have no proportion to thy mercies; for what are the sands of the sea, earth, heavens, and all these are nothing to thy mercies. Besides my innumerable sins, I confess before thee, that I am debtor to thee for the gracious talent of thy gifts and graces, which |