Preface

The treatise De Sapicntia Veterum was first published in 1609, in a small duodecimo volume, carefully and beautifully printed in the elegant italic type then in use. It appears to have become speedily popular, and was once or twice reprinted during Bacon's life, and translated both into English and Italian. In 1623, he introduced three of the fables, revised and considerably enlarged, into the De Augmentis Scientiarum, as a specimen of one of the Desiderata, Two others he had designed for the foundation of an elaborate discussion of the philosophy of Democritus, Parmeuides, and Telesius; of which a considerable fragment has been preserved. [The De Principiis, above, pp. 647–69.] A year or two before his death he designed to include the whole volume among the Opera Moralin et Civilia, of which he was then preparing a collection, and in which it was afterwards published by Dr. Rawley, along with the Latin translations of the History of Henry VII., the Essays, the New Atlantis, and the Dialogue of a Holy War. Therey can be no doubt therefore that it was a work which he thought well of, and meant to live.