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xiv PREFACE.


the Opus Majus as a whole is its existence in the MS, here spoken of as O. O., as already stated, can hardly be considered earlier than 1440. If it were not genuine, the alternative would be to suppose it an artificial compilation of Baconian treatises made at some date between the end of the thirteenth and the middle of the fifteenth century. Against this somewhat gratuitous supposition is to be set, first, the internal evidence to be found in the work itself; secondly, the external evidence derived from the Opus Mines or Secundum, and the Opus Tertium.

The internal evidence consists (a) in frequent references to l'ope Clement IV. to whom the work was addressed. The letter of the Pope to Bacon requesting him to send to him the results of his researches was copied by Wadding from the Vatican archives, and has been verified by myself after inspection of the original document. In a work written subsequently to the Opus Majus (Compendium Studii, Brewer, p. 424), Bacon mentions Clement IV. as the Pope in question. Among these references to the Pope in the Opus Majus may be mentioned vol. i. pp. 1, 12, 17, 23, 72, 81, 285, 376-7, 403, vol. ii. p. 377. They are found in the carlier MSS., no less than in the later.

The second branch of internal evidence (0) consists in the numerous cross-references from one part of the Opus Majus to another. Thus Part II. is spoken of (vol. i. 33) as a continuation of Part I. Frequent references to Part 11. are made in Part VII., as vol. ii. pp. 225, 229, 333, and 237. The opening sentence of Part 111, refers to the results of Part 11. ; that of Part IV. to Part III.; that of Part V. to Parts 111, and IV. ; that of Part VI. to Parts III., IV., and V.; that of Part VII. to Parts II., III., IV., V., and VI. Part VI. is spoken of in Part IV. (vol. i. p. 213); Part VII. in Part I. (i. p. 57); and numerous references are made in Part VII. to Part IV. (vol. ii. pp. 369, 370, 371, 380, 389).

To this internal evidence is to be added the external proof derived from the Opus Minus and the Opus Tertium. For the first it is sufficient to refer to pp. 316-20 of Brewer's edition (Rolls series 1859), including both these treatises. In the case of the second the evidence is more abundant. Reference to l'art I. will be found in cap. xxi. and xxii.; to l'art II. in cap. xxiii. and xxiv.; to Part III. in cap. xxv.-xxvii.; to Part IV. in cap. xxviii,-lxxv. to Part V. in cap. xii. ; to Part VI. in cap. xiii. ; to Part VII. in cap. xiv. It may be added that mention is made of the Opus Tertium, under the title tertia scriptura, in a contemporary marginal note on f. 32b. of V. On the whole, it will be hard to find in the history of literature a work the authenticity of which rests on a sounder foundation. These, and other questions of a more doubtful kind would be at once disposed of, could the original MS. sent in 1267 to Rome be discovered. But of this there is

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